174 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
trying to serve two. Hunt committees might do 
worse than establish centres for the production of 
eggs and the rearing of pheasants. From these 
they might in some measure make amends for losses 
by foxes, conditionally upon coverts being reasonably 
open to hounds, and foxes being found in them. 
This would be a good way of finding employment 
for keepers out of place, besides being a sympathetic 
compliment to the whole brotherhood of keepers. 
There is no insuperable difficulty in the way of 
making allowance for losses among pheasants, or in 
compensating for them in kind. The question is, 
Who is to bear the cost of this tribute to foxes? 
Since it is absurdly unjust that men who already 
pay heavily for their shooting should be so taxed, 
seeing that they are growing every year more 
unwilling to bear it, and that it is solely for the 
benefit of hunting-people that the tax exists at all, 
it is only reasonable that hunting-people should 
bear it. The more difficult problem is—foxes and 
partridges. What with rooks, rats, and other 
vermin, partridges have to contend with quite 
enough persecution without any attention on the 
part of foxes. I do not think partridges ever will 
be reared with the same facility as pheasants; at 
any rate, I devoutly hope they will not. There is 
no practicable way in which losses among partridges 
could be made good by a sympathetic hunt. Of 
course, Hungarian birds might be distributed in the 
