THE KEEPER'S BOOK: A GUIDE TO THE DUTIES OF A GAMEKEEPER. By Sir Peter Jeffrey Mackie, Bart.

(1903) 2005 new edition. 8vo (160 x 242mm). Ppxii,595. B/w illustrations. Monochrome pictorial laminated boards.

Chapters on the different aspects of a keeper's work; on poachers, vermin, dogs, game, deer, rabbits, fisheries etc. Includes a chapter on "A Christmas tiger shoot" by Bunnie Wyndham-Quin. "With a new introduction and a special chapter on sporting guns by Major Hugh Pollard, sporting editor of Country Life". This is a detailed account of what the gamekeeper and his profession should look like, from the point of view of the master of the establishment. "This book is written for 'the good keeper who knows his work, and for the bad one who does not.'" "Even taking the master on the highest plane, he can never be more than a very good amateur. The keeper is, ...a specialist. Within the limits of his duties, a keeper should know all that is to be known, and in the majority of cases should know infinitely more than his master. ...This ideal can only be reached if a keeper bases his knowledge and his work on the possibility of his master being an absolute ignoramus on all matters, not even excepting the handling of a gun." More generally, Mackie observes, there is in "...[ball] games a competitive or a team play spirit which, admirable in itself, is something apart from the essential quality of real sport. We must not be led to confuse the narrower and more specialised outlook and training of the athlete with the very much higher craft of the hunter. The one is an accomplishment, the other in a much wider sense a liberal education." This is a modern reprint in which the colour plates of the original are replaced by inferior black and white illustrations. However the text is still of great value.