WILD-BRED AND HAND-REARED 191 



in the game. Honest keepers always have game, but 

 again they sometimes waste money lavishly. 



Your head man must keep a strict and honour- 

 able watch upon the corn account, and all the minor 

 charges for sitting hens and food of all sorts, which his 

 underlings may manipulate to their own advantage. 

 Where there is fraudulent management a vast amount 

 of corn is supposed to be bought by the owner which 

 never reaches the pheasants, and many other things 

 are purchased in larger quantities and at higher prices 

 than they should be. 



The temptation to sell eggs, and game, dead or 

 alive, is also very great, and with eggs especially is 

 more often yielded to than is supposed. There is a 

 very free market in pheasants' eggs, and it would be 

 impossible to prevent the sale of them, nor could you 

 check it by a consensus of righteous opinion, as is 

 undoubtedly done to a certain extent with partridge's 

 eggs. But the simplest check of all is to judge your 

 man by the results on his beat. If to your certain 

 knowledge he had so many hens on the ground on 

 February i, has had so much money, or its equivalent 

 in food and appliances, as should produce, at a fair 

 estimate considering the season, so many pheasants, 

 and if when you go to shoot his wood these pheasants 

 are not there, dismiss him. Do not drive him to 



