“On 18 December 1913 seven Guns, including the Prince of Wales, slew 3,937 pheasants” I read the letter of the week from J. Norbury (Big bags and bad taste, 1 February), with a sense of déjà vu. The topic of large and apparently excessive bags in the driven game field has been touched on time and again in recent years, usually with a degree of nervous trepidation. It is, after all, an extremely sensitive subject, embracing as it does the financial and long-term interests, not only of commercial shoots but also those of gamefarmers and dealers, gamekeepers and even, on a lesser scale, beaters and pickers-up.
Before condemning what may appear to be grossly excessive bags of birds, you must take into account the more isolated parts of the country,…
