186 BIRD LIFE THROUGHOUT THE YEAR 



the extent to which the fortunes of our British birds 

 are influenced by our British system of game-pre- 

 serving. Everybody knows that the chief business 

 of the gamekeeper is to promote the well-being and 

 increase the numbers of pheasants, partridges and 

 grouse, and to wage war upon certain feres nature 

 which are supposed to be prejudicial to their interests. 

 Who does not know the " gamekeeper's museum " 

 or " keeper's larder," which by its proportions attests 

 his prowess with trap and gun ? By the side of the 

 plantation is a wooden frame-work, supporting five 

 rails, placed one above the other and each nearly twenty 

 yards in length. Hanging from these rails, is what 

 we take at a distance to be a collection of tawny 

 and parti-coloured rags.. Draw nearer and one gets 

 an unmistakable whiff of carrion, for upon the rails 

 the remains of vermin, winged or four-footed, are 

 nailed side by side as closely as they can be placed. 

 There are whole regiments of stoats and weasels with 

 their thin, dried-up bodies, rows of cats' tails and 

 bunches of rats' tails, hedgehogs' heads, with here and 

 there an owl, hawk or magpie, often the head only, 

 time and the elements having dissipated the rest. For 

 the collection has not been made in a day, but is the 

 accumulation of years. Many of the specimens are 

 very old, some of the weasels being only represented 

 by their little white skulls, and weasels hold together 

 for a long time. There are scores of rusty nails, from 



