42 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



their sticks with a will on the cover to drive forward 

 game. They show some skill of a rough sort, and 

 considerable wood-craft. A man gives no sign that 

 he has seen a rabbit, his stride is unhalting as he 

 comes up, and it is without any flourish that suddenly 

 a swift, deft blow of the stick is delivered, aimed a 

 little forward of the head. Too late, the rabbit 

 knows its fatal mistake in thinking that the slow 

 eyes of man had passed it over, as it crouched in its 

 seat. 



The law forbids any man to shoot either partridge 

 or pheasant when the last second has passed away 

 of the last minute of the first hour after sunset on the 

 first day of February. No doubt the law-makers were 

 mindful that the light one hour after sunset at the 

 beginning of February would make it extremely 

 difficult for a sportsman to hit a flying pheasant 

 or partridge. The law-makers wisely drew no dis- 

 tinction between misses and hits pheasant-shooting 

 means, they held, shooting at a pheasant with evi- 

 dent intent to kill. What is hard to understand about 

 the law is why the season does not end with the last 

 day of January. Remembering that February 1 

 is often the day when the keeper goes from the old 

 shoot to the new, we think it would be decidedly 

 better for game that the day should be put out of 

 season. It would be the worse for the poacher. As 

 things are, February 1 is often a day of anarchy. 

 And it would be a good plan if dog licences and the 

 game season were made to end on the same day 



