THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
look favourably on the existence of rabbits within their reach. Incidentally 
a great many trades are benefited where rabbits are preserved. Gun 
makers, cartridge makers, boot makers, gaiter makers and others, in 
turn derive a profit by supplying the wants of local sportsmen, nor 
should we lose sight of the fact that an enormous addition is made 
to imperial revenue by the number of ten-shilling licences which are 
taken out under the provisions of the Gun Licence Act. 
On the other hand, as above hinted, there are many who regard rabbits 
with detestation. Foresters on large estates are never tired of denouncing 
the damage done by rabbits in young plantations, as well as in game 
coverts. Landowners who let their covert shooting generally take care 
to have inserted in the leases a covenant on the part of the shooting tenant 
to keep down the rabbits, while we have often heard a good-natured host 
declare that he would like to see rabbits exterminated, as being the cause 
of constant squabbling and litigation, giving more trouble than they are 
worth. Before the Ground Game Act was passed, farmers no doubt had 
a legitimate grievance, in respect of damage done to crops by hares and 
rabbits, and claims for compensation were of regular occurrence as rent 
day came round; but now they have the power to obviate much of the 
damage done by killing the ground game over land in their own occupa- 
tion. If no other interests but their own had to be considered, this might 
be all very well, but unfortunately, as daily experience shows, the opera- 
tion of the Ground Game Act is by no means regarded with general ap- 
proval. On the contrary, it has given much dissatisfaction to those who 
have as great, if not a greater, interest in the matter than the tenant 
farmers, namely, the owners of the land and their shooting tenants. To 
a landowner who lets his shooting it means depreciation of rent; for his 
shooting tenant will not pay anything like so good a rent as formerly 
if the killing of hares and rabbits has to be shared with the tenant farmer, 
or “ occupier,” as he is termed in the Ground Game Act; while the shooting 
tenant himself is still further dissatisfied by the constant disturbance 
of the ground by the “ occupier ” who, under pretext of keeping down 
the rabbits in exercise of a legal right, is perpetually setting traps and 
wires, which catch not only rabbits, but pheasants, and ferreting hedge- 
rows which afford some of the best nesting sites on the land for partridges. 
Moreover, there appears to be amongst tenant farmers a widespread 
ignorance of the conditions upon which the Act gives them a concurrent 
right with their landlords to kill or take the ground game. Presumably 
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