OLD-WORLD FOWLING 83 



right or not in throwing out this suggestion, there 

 need be no doubt that the practice of shooting ' tree'd ' 

 pheasants, which I described in the second chapter, 

 liad its exact parallel in Europe before our modern 

 guns were invented. 



The other day I happened to spend a spare half- 

 hour in one of the galleries of the Louvre which pos- 

 sesses a fine variety of pictures illustrating the chase. 

 One of the points which the trophies of gay chasseurs 

 thus depicted are apparently designed to exemplify is 

 the nonchalance with which a true Gallic Nimrod 

 ' pots ' as gibier anything which carries a few feathers. 

 Thus, a day's sport is represented on a large canvas as 

 including a brace of wild duck, a great bustard, a wood- 

 cock, two chaffinches and a brambling, a curlew, and a 

 great spotted woodpecker ! The picture, however, which 

 interested me most is one which represents a fine cock 

 pheasant (of the good old red type) perching com- 

 placently in a tree, which he shares with a bril- 

 liant golden oriole. A great spotted woodpecker is 

 drawn in flight, and a couple of dogs stand together 

 at the base of the tree, evidently waiting for their 

 master to arrive and shoot the bird which they have 

 forced to take to a tree. 



As a practical comment upon this, I may quote a 

 few words from Professor Newton's recently published 



