8 SPORTING OF THE PAST 



first of September ? — gone, gone for ever. The 

 reaping-machine cuts it off now as close as the 

 cloth on a billiard table. 



It has often been said the birds are wilder at 

 present than they were: admitting this to be the case, 

 the cause probably is the high state of cultivation, 

 and nothing more. There is not the cover there was 

 formerly to hold them, and therefore they are more 

 difficult to get at. Turnips are now sown in drills, 

 and not broadcast, as grain usually was. If you 

 work down the drills, the birds see you, and are off 

 the other end : the only way is to take them across. 

 Yet there are thousands of places where the cover 

 is good and plentiful ; and where this is the case 

 the birds lie as well as ever. 



Game is scarcer than it was, except on manors 

 that are highly preserved : it must be remembered 

 that where there was one shooter formerly, there 

 are twenty now. It is a difficult matter at present 

 to rent a shooting, for directly there is anything 

 good in the market it is snatched up at once. 



The general style of shooting of the present day 

 is odious — large bags are " the go." In some coun- 

 tries it has done away with the noble pointer and 

 setter altogether ; nothing but retrievers are used. 

 The guns, beaters, and keepers are all in a line : a 

 gun, then a keeper with a retriever, a beater, 



