296 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 

 Most gamekeepers hold the killing of a hen pheasant 

 after Christmas to be a moral crime. And perhaps 

 most genuine sportsmen feel a twinge of the 

 Spare conscience when they pull a trigger at a hen 

 g ens in New Year days irrespective of the host's 

 permission. Of course, when the orders are 

 to spare hens, the man who kills or even tries to kill 

 one does something that the keeper will not forget 

 he loses caste for ever in the keeper's eyes ; whereas 

 the man who is not greedy to take advantage of an 

 impromptu permission to shoot hens ensures for 

 himself a niche in the keeper's good graces. 



It is true, there are hens and hens. Only a churlish 

 keeper would not admire the man who stops one 

 of those skyscraping hens, of the sort bagged by 

 ordinary gunners about once in a lifetime. But the 

 order, " Shoot hens if they are real tall ones," alarms 

 a keeper unless he has full confidence in the guns 

 of a party. When the word has been given, it is 

 wonderful how many hens are " real tall ones." 

 There are excuses which must be accepted : for in 

 certain conditions of light, when the golden moment 

 for pressing the trigger is within grasp, it is almost 

 impossible to distinguish hens from cocks length 

 of tail is then the most reliable evidence. 



We remember a knowing old keeper who laid a 

 plot to ensure at least a merry start to a Christmas 

 shoot, when " Cocks only " was the order of the 

 day. This worthy, when catching up birds for his 

 pens, had gathered together some twenty super- 



