A FEATHERED NOTABLE 105 
past, when it was more to the country gentleman 
than the semi-domestic pheasant and the par- 
tridge on the arable land and the blackcock and 
red-grouse on the moors all together to the man of 
to-day. The memory of that vanished time, the 
thought that the ruder life of the past, when men 
lived nearer to Nature, had a keener flavour, is 
accompanied with a haunting regret. It is true 
that the regret is for something we have not known, 
that we have only heard or read of it, but it has 
become mixed in our mind with our very own 
experienced past—our glad beautiful “days that 
are no more.” And when we remember that in 
those distant days the heron was a table-bird, we 
may well believe that men were healthier and had 
better appetites than now—that they were all and 
always young. 
