6 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



There is little to be said against the keeper making 

 use of game killed, but not eaten, by foxes or vermin, or 

 of chance-killed game unsuitable for his employer's 

 table. One old keeper was so anxious to make every 

 available pheasant figure in the game-book that he 

 would never keep the brace given him at the end of a 

 day's shooting. Instead, he would include the birds 

 with the bag on the following day, and this he 

 would do day after day. 



Free though they are to kill and cook rabbits, 

 few keepers care for them, or eat them often. Most 

 keepers, indeed, would be as pleased to go to penal 

 servitude, or to live in London, as to eat rabbits 

 more often than once a month. This is not because 

 they have eaten too many, but because the smell of 

 rabbits has become distasteful. However, rabbits 

 prove a great help to the keeper with children to 

 feed. Usually his larder is well stocked, and his 

 good-wife has a store of all kinds of dainties in her 

 cupboards from home-made pickles to home-brewed 

 wine. Often your keeper is a clever gardener ; 

 he takes prizes for his vegetables, and he will grow 

 fine cucumbers and even melons under fragments of 

 glass. Something of a cook himself, well accustomed 

 to preparing luxurious meals for his sacred birds, he 

 is a judge of cooks and cooking, as many a keeper's 

 wife has discovered. If she does not know, he can 

 tell her how to prepare a savoury dish which shall 

 have the special advantages of not spoiling through 

 being kept warm or from being warmed up for the 



