io6 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



for the sovereign people, but an unnatural outlet 

 for wasteful wealth, reared on the savings of the poor 

 and needy, on the sweat of hardy toilers, for whom 

 the gaol for ever yawns if haply they should touch a 

 feather of this precious bird, luxury sacred to the 

 lord and the landgrabber. 



Away with the degenerate class of humanity 

 which delights to nurture this exotic, unnecessary 

 creature, and having done so, to let loose all the 

 predatory and bloodthirsty instincts of savage man, 

 and butcher it wholesale ! Away with this dainty ; 

 let us have food, money, and land for the people, 

 and be rid of the idle vicious class who, living in their 

 sybarite fashion on the rack-rented peasantry, con- 

 sume ill-gotten wealth in such debasing pursuits as 

 fox hunting and pheasant shooting ! 



But stay — this will not quite do ; let us look at 

 the pheasant from some other points of view. He is 

 more English than you think, nay, than most of us, 

 for was he not brought over by the Romans, who 

 saw in the forests of old Britain a new home for the 

 Asiatic bird, which must be served for the feasts of 

 Lollius and Caractacus, or even of Csesar himself? 

 You have not seen him, as I have, roaming at his wild 

 will over the heaths of Norfolk, or in the wooded 

 glens of Scotland, in the hop gardens of Kent, or the 



