With regard to the destruction of crops by game, especially when caused by the preserves of a neighbouring proprietor, the committee seems to have been rather at a loss to deal. And there is certainly a good deal of difficulty in the matter. For on the one hand, the game, while committing the depredation, is clearly not the property of the preserver, and may of course be killed by the party to whose ground it passes: on the other hand, it usually returns to the preserve after all the damage has been done. This seems to be one of the few instances in which the law can afford no remedy. The neighbouring farmer may indeed either shoot in person, or let the right of shooting to another; and in most cases he has the power to do so--for if his own landlord is also a preserver, it is not likely that the damage will be aggravated--and he has taken his farm in the full knowledge of the consequences of game preservation. Still there must always remain an evil, however partial, and this leads us to address a few words to the general body of the game-preservers. Gentlemen, some of you are not altogether without fault in this matter. You have given a handle to accusations, which your enemies--and they are the enemies also of the true interests of the country--have been eager and zealous in using. You have pushed your privileges too far, and, if you do not take care, you will raise a storm which it may be very difficult to allay. What, in the name of common sense, is the use of this excessive preserving? You are not blamed, nor are you blamable, for reserving the right of sporting in your own properties to yourselves; but why make your game such utterly sacred animals? Why encourage their over-increase to such a degree as must naturally injure yourselves by curtailing your rent; and which, undoubtedly, whatever be his bargain, must irritate the farmer, and lessen that harmony and good-will which ought to exist betwixt you both? Is it for sport you do these things? If so, your definition of sport must be naturally different from ours. The natural instinct of the hunter, which is implanted in the heart of man, is in some respects a noble one. He does not, even in a savage state, pursue his game, like a wild beast of prey, merely for the sake of his appetite--he has a joy in the strong excitement and varied incidents of the chase. The wild Indian and the Norman disciple of St Hubert, alike considered it a science; and so it is even now to us who follow our pastime upon the mountains, and who must learn to be as wary and alert as the creatures which we seek to kill. The mere skill of the marksman has little to do with the real enjoyment of sport. That may be as well exhibited upon a target as upon a living object, and surely there is no pleasure at all in the mere wanton destruction of life. The true sportsman takes delight in the sagacity and steadiness of his dogs--in seeking for the different wild animals each in its peculiar haunt--and his