204 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
to the bag. And a tip is supposed to represent 
his appreciation of the day’s sport. I was present, 
in the capacity of loader, at a shoot at which three 
hundred pheasants were bagged. The birds (hand- 
reared) were beaten to the centres of some pretty 
coverts. Scores ran across the rides almost between 
one’s legs, and the rest just flopped up and down. 
There was much exultation at the finish. I was 
asked how I would enjoy a day like that, and 
answered, ‘Not much as a beater, and still less 
as a gun.’ 
Nesting was the work which I enjoyed most 
of all. The townsman meeting a keeper strolling 
about in search of eggs on a May morning may 
be excused his envy of the keeper’s lot. If all 
his days were as the sweetest of May, with the 
birds always singing, the pheasants crowing their 
challenge, the turtle-doves and wood-pigeons cooing, 
the rich carpets of flowers spreading incense, and 
those olive eggs in plenty to be found—fair indeed 
would be the keeper’s lot. But those calm days 
when life is so good are not best for the safety 
of eggs, which then are seen easier than in the 
dull days of blustering wind and restless herbage. 
Keepers speak of the hunt for eggs as ‘nesting’ 
or ‘egging, and more often of ‘looking’ than of 
searching a hedgerow or covert. Nests are not 
found by mere searching, but by a gift of knowing 
intuitively where and how to look; nor does one 
