But if you should see several cocks without tails at the end of the season the fewer questions you ask the keeper in public the better: the birds are the superfluous ones of those captured for the laying pens, and have been for a time imprisoned to provide a spirited ending to the last days of shooting. The keeper is not proud of them, and no doubt they are sorry for themselves. * * * * * Preparations From the young days of the year, when his hens began to lay once more, the keeper adds eggs to his store for the sake of the birds of May. His cares and worries, his long hours and weary trudgings, and the chances and changes of the weather make the keeper grumble more and more with the years; but he is always a devoted slave to sport, and takes pleasure in each act of preparation for a new season. Every time he adds to the store of feeding eggs he is thinking of the prospects of his pheasants. He sees chicks turning to awkward poults, and poults turning to full-feathered birds, topping the lofty trees or sailing high over the valley, while the guns are coughing below. Over his store of eggs for feeding he gloats like a miser over gold. Stowed away in a cool place these eggs--after each one has been dipped for about thirty seconds in boiling water--will keep their good feeding qualities for months. * * * * * Hungry Rabbits From the New Year until well on in March rabbits are hard pressed to find food--not necessarily because the weather may be bad, but because so many fields present a surface of bare earth, where hitherto rabbits have been able to find ungrudged pickings. When barred from other food, they will be driven to bark underwood, and so cause a price to be set on their heads; and cause people to think and say that a couple of rabbits are at least a score. When they are shut in a wood by wire netting, they will be almost certain to attack the undergrowth, whereas if free to come and go they would have done no damage to speak about, outside or in. * * * * * To Save Underwood