The third class is the authorized sportsman. The rent he
pays enables the naturalists to ,secure sanctuaries and to pay watchers. These sportsmen, often accompanied by the watcher, are careful to shoot only the commoner duck and snipe ; and some of those who control the sanctuaries believe that the shooting of certain birds which multiply unduly is a condition precedent to retaining some of the rarer birds. Similarly on some London reservoirs the coot have so multi- plied as to threaten the exile of grebe and golden eye duel-, If such a view is held by the beneficent people who have secured and who preserve the sanctuaries it is not to be lightly condemned. My own view is that the perpetual popping of guns is fatal to a reserve, but that little harm is done if the intervals are decently wide ; and this principle should be observed by all those who rent the winter shooting. It might be laid down in a clause in the lease. Certainly the control of some species is necessary if others are to be encouraged.
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