xxiv Appendix No. 1.
within the protected area, the greater are the chances of success in the
object in view. Every sportsman knows the effect of firing a shot at one
end of a covert. It is a signal for all the pheasants, hares, and rabbits to
run to the other end, from which they would undoubtedly escape were it
not for the practice of placing " stops," whose business it is to keep up a
gentle tapping, and so prevent the game from getting away.
But although the game-preservers need not forego their shooting, they
may reasonably forbid their gamekeepers to carry guns between the first
of February and the first of September, and thus ensure perfect quietude
during that season of the year when most wild creatures produce their
young. Many keepers doubtless will protest, and aver that they cannot
keep the vermin down unless they are allowed to carry a gun; but in the
first place, if they know their business properly, every sort of vermin can
be taken by trapping, and in the second place it should be remembered
that the protection of so-called vermin is one of the objects in view, in
order to test by actual experiment whether or not their existence is com-
patible with the co-existence of a good head of game.
The chief foes of the game-preserver, amongst mammals, are the fox,
the polecat, and the stoat. They confine their attentions chiefly to
rabbits, and where these are plentiful the above-named vermin will live
and thrive. But foxes may be kept in cheek by hounds, and the numbers
of polecats and stoats may be kept within moderate limits by the judicious
use of the box-trap. As a matter of fact, it is believed that the polecat
has been already exterminated, or nearly so, in Essex, and hence, unless
reintroduced, the idea of protecting it may be discarded. The same may
be said of its relative, the marten, once an inhabitant of Epping Forest,
and one of the most beautiful animals to be met with in our English
woodlands. Martens are still common in some parts of Ireland, and there
should be no difficulty in procuring a few pairs and turning them out in
Epping Forest. The polecat and stoat, although partial to rabbits, prey
on numerous other creatures less powerful than themselves; for example,
the polecat takes rats, mice, frogs, and even fish, especially eels ; and the
stoat is particularly useful in destroying numbers of field voles and long-
tailed field mice, which often do great damage by barking the trees in
young plantations.
Field mice also, as well as the common house mouse found about barns
and rick-yards, form the staple food of the weasel, which is, on this
account, a friend rather than a foe to man. Certainly its depredations in
the game preserves are insignificant, and from its diminutive size neces-
sarily confined to such young animals as it can manage to overpower.
Weasels hunt moles, and if the latter are prejudicial to the interests of the
farmer (a point on which some difference of opinion prevails), the latter
as their natural enemies have a further claim to man's protection.
The badger is an animal of such shy and retiring habits, that unless a
considerable tract of wood were left undisturbed, the underwood uncut,
and the public excluded from that particular portion of the wood, it would
be useless to attempt its preservation.
For a different reason the otter would be equally difficult to return as a
denizen of the protected area. Otters are great travellers, " here to-day,
gone to-morrow; " but if there is a good store of fish, particularly eels, of
which they are very fond, a pair, if unmolested, might be induced to make
their head quarters in some sequestered part of the river.
A wood without squirrels is deprived of one of its chief ornaments, and
one would be disposed to overlook the damage done to young shoots in
plantations, for the sake of watching the graceful movements and won-
derful agility of this otherwise inoffensive little animal. If instructions
were given to keepers not to shoot squirrels, they would soon establish