198 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
old, I had a look at all his birds. I told him he was 
lucky to have lost so few, and that those he had 
looked wonderfully well. Shortly afterwards I met 
the infallible lifelong keeper. He began to slander 
as usual, going on to revel in, and to multiply, the 
former groom’s losses; so I gently reminded him 
that 1897, his first year in the district, was a 
capital year for pheasants, but that the following 
season, when he ought to have had over two thousand 
birds, he came off the field with a doubtful six 
hundred. And this was the end of his backbiting. 
Another trait in the slandering type of keeper's 
character is shown (to those behind the scenes) 
by the furious energy in all he does within sight 
of the ‘gents.’ Out of their sight and hearing 
he does little but curse them up and down each 
beat. 
Though there are scores of excellent keepers who 
have never followed any other calling, it does not 
follow that they are superior to men who took to 
the work comparatively late in life. It is the most 
natural thing in the world that a boy, the son of a 
keeper, should follow in his father’s footsteps, but 
he is quite likely. to possess no special qualifications 
for the calling. He may become a keeper only 
because his father was a keeper. Personally, I 
have come to the conclusion that gamekeepers 
who started to earn their living in other ways 
generally make the best keepers, because the special 
