40 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



jingles gold and silver his reward for success in the 

 contest of wit and reason against cunning and in- 

 stinct. The second day of February comes and his 

 whole nature seems to undergo a change. No longer 

 he boasts to his rival neighbour how a week ago come 

 to-morrow the bag was so many hundred pheasants, 

 and would have been doubled if the guns had shot 

 " anyhow at all." But he will make a boast of the 

 numbers of his hen pheasants. The sight of hen 

 pheasants is the greatest joy of his days over his 

 hens he watches with maternal love. " And how 

 many hens was there ? " this is the answer he will 

 return should you mention casually that you had seen 

 pheasants feeding in a field. 



As to cock pheasants, his sensations are different. 

 The sight of a cock pheasant is a taunt. The veteran 

 cocks that have passed unscathed through the shoot- 

 ing season now grow proud in bearing, and the 

 keeper thinks they seem to eye him with scornful 

 looks. They are approaching the reward of their 

 cunning, of their keen eyes, their sharp ears, their 

 speedy legs the possibility of several wives is before 

 them. No matter where the keeper goes now, he is 

 taunted by the sight and sound of these victorious 

 veterans that have eluded all his efforts to bring 

 them low. In summer it is the lament of the twenty 

 thousand gamekeepers in this country that there are 

 *' too many cocks by half." 



An idea is widespread among keepers, if not among 

 employers, that they are privileged, by virtue of their 



