Combining so many advantages, it is to be deplored that the preservation of game in this country is not more carefully guarded, and that the scarcity of many species is becoming more and more apparent. The practice of spring shooting of snipe, duck, and shore-birds, when on their migrations to their northern nesting-grounds, cannot be too severely censured; while the laxity in enforcing the laws and the dissimilarity of close seasons in different counties operates still further to cause the depletion of wild life. The pot-hunter and the spaniel, the trap and the gin, are gradually exterminating the ruffed grouse; the olden flocks of plover and wild pigeon have well-nigh vanished; while snipe, woodcock, quail, and duck are now as rare in many localities where they formerly abounded as the trout which once swarmed in the streams. Deer and its congeners, it is true, have received better protection of recent years, the increasing numbers of deer at least attesting the wisdom of stringent laws stringently enforced. It will therefore be readily evident that preservation and protection become a question of paramount importance which may no longer be loosely considered, or soon the last grouse will have sounded his reveille, and the whistle of the woodcock will remain only as a memory. The remedy is easily prescribed, and may be briefly summarised--legitimate shooting and fishing, rigid enforcement of the laws with heavy penalties for the offender, a single close season for the smaller species that are found in proximity, abolishment of spring shooting, and a rigorous surveillance of the covers. By this means the table may possess one of its greatest luxuries in abundance, and sport resume its former sphere as the greatest of recuperative and edifying recreations. In its relation to the table, the term "game" is held to include wild fowl as well as most furred and feathered spoils of the chase. Or, defined more accurately in its connection with gastronomy, it embraces everything belonging to the province of sport that is edible. Correctly speaking, no species of wild fowl, or species like the plover, rail, pigeon, etc., may be accounted game, the quality of which consists in the subtle presence of scent, instinctively recognised and followed by thoroughbred dogs,--a trait expressed by Hollar's lines, "The Feasant Cocke the woods doth most frequent, Where Spaniells spring and pearche him by the sent." Yet species foreign to the blue blood of flax and feather may, nevertheless, afford sport, and prove acquisitions for the table. The little spotted sandpiper, accordingly, whose musical _peet, weet, weet_ rings along the brooksides and moist meadow-lands, and even the squirrel if killed in cold weather, are entitled to rank as table-game, providing they be properly prepared.