This post provides another example of an abandoned project, the purpose of which is forgotten. It is again a sign that I am getting rid of some old notes. It may have been the case that I thought that game books, such as the one pictured above, could yield some interesting information and, at least I can prove that is the case.
The information may be hard to digest if you are an animal lover or vegetarian. And no larger lessons are learned from it, since these are just my notes from which no conclusions are reached about the large scale slaughters described. If you don't wish to read about the killing of game, read Singer's Animal Liberation instead.
The OED defines "game book" as "A book or ledger in which details are kept of the game killed in the course of a shoot, or of all the game killed on a particular estate." In 1908, Lord Alanbrooke notes, "I have just been adding up my game book, and find that my totals for the larger game work out most satisfactorily for my first year in India." If you have read much history about the upper classes you will have run across such books and realize that hunting was both a sport and pastime which also provided a considerable amount of food.
Such books are typically classified under a broad heading and are not easily identified. This one was found in storage in the collection of the Western Libraries and is likely to be shipped off soon for storage elsewhere. Here are some passages from Leaves From A Game Book, followed by some other notes.
The first interesting item is from the forward where one learns that, “This book was written in various prison-camps in Germany." It is well-written as you will see and you will also learn a bit about the appeal of hunting, and that fish can be found in trees.
“Little mention will be found in this book of large-scale shoots, or of notable bags obtained. For though most of us can and do recall such occasions with pleasure, they must almost invariably rank second in our memories. The first places are filled with those treasured days when we went forth alone, or but with one or two friends, to the achievement of a small triumph, or the gaining of experience by defeat. No true hunter of game really minds disproportionate rewards for his labours, or even total failure; the actual killing of the quarry represents so small a part of his enjoyment.” (pp.6-7)
“The majority of us, whatever our detractors may assert to the contrary, have no desire to take life simply for the pleasure of seeing blood. If we had, our natural propensities would surely lead us to find our enjoyment in the nearest slaughterhouse. What we want is to match our wits, our quickness of hand and eye, our powers of patience, or concentration, or pure physical courage, against those of a wild creature. And that we should have to kill our prey in order to complete the victory may be regrettable; nevertheless it is a deep-rooted and an essentially natural instinct in man. But the true hunter desires no easy conquest. Rather will he prize difficulties, prefer that the odds may be in favour of the quarry and that the duel should be played out in exactly those surroundings which constitute the natural home of the hunted — and the erstwhile home of the hunter also.” (p28)
“I got no other chance at pig during that drive, though even I could scarcely have failed to kill a mouse deer which stood in the open, at point-blank range, for several seconds. But to destroy so fairy-like a creature, looking no bigger than an English hare, with a weapons not unsuitable for disabling a light tank seemed altogether too grotesque a piece of savagery. So, after peering at me in a doubtful and short sighted manner with its large soft eyes, the mouse deer skipped safely away among the trees; leaving for me an enduring memory of the slender grace of delicate legs, of the tiny polished feet and shining coat of brown-and-white satin.” (p.21)
Malaya
“Of the hot two hour journey up the river my recollections are a little confused. I remember the Dutchman distributed bottled beer from the ice-chest and corkscrew cheroots from one of his packages; that we sat drinking and smoking, as the green steaming banks slid smoothly by…. But one most vivid recollection of the journey I can must describe in full. I am not likely ever to forget it., for it was of the nature of a Solemn Warning. Seating facing the bows, I was idly scanning the twisted masses of the mangroves when, amid a tangle of roots, branches and leaves some three feet above the mud, I encountered the stonily disapproving stare of a fish….I closed my eyes. This, then, was what happened to immoderate drinkers in the tropics. I remembered with shame that I had been wont to consider as diverting tales of men who saw pink elephants, or snakes wearing hats – or fish in trees….But when I looked again the thing was still there; a veritable slate-grey, blunt-nosed fish, eight inches long and perched comfortably in the crook of a branch. And, as we drew abreast of it the creature shuffled hastily down from its eyre, propelled itself with seal-like flippers over the mud, and vanished into the water. “They are funny little fishes those belukang,” said the Dutchman placidly. “Always they sit out on the mud and sometimes, as now in a tree. Very amusing. You will have some schnapps in your beer—yes?” (p.150)
Game books will be found in the collections of other good university libraries. In the "Hawthorn Fly Fishing & Angling Collection" at UBC, you will find Alan Roderick Haig-Brown's, My Game Book and you can look through the 293 pages.
Such books often have been digitized and are located in the Internet Archive and in collections like the one at the Biodiversity Heritage Library, where this book is found: Leaves From a Game Book, by Augustus Grimble.
The figures relating to the number of birds and animals killed are often astonishingly large. Here is a sample from the Grimble book noted above.
Data such as these are used by historians as is seen here:
"Head keepers, who were responsible for coordinating the driving of the birds, utilized a small army of beaters to sweep in wide areas on the days before the main shoot to concentrate birds on the beats that were to be shot. The record bag of 1,671 partridges, regarded as the best sporting bird, was achieved in 1905 on Lord Leicester’s Holkham beat in Norfolk. A close second was the total achieved in 1906 on the Duke of Portland’s estate of 1,504 killed on the Blue Barn beat, while 1,461 birds were shot in a single day on Lord Ashburton’s celebrated shooting estate near Alresford in Hampshire in1897. Not far behind was the Prince of Wales’s Sandringham estate, where in 1905 1,342 birds were secured.
Shooting parties achieved considerably larger bags of pheasants, as it was easier to amass them and drive them in military style to the waiting guns. The all-time record for a single day’s shooting is credited to a party of seven guns, which included King George V and the Prince of Wales, on an estate at Beaconsfield in 1913, when 3,937 pheasants, three partridges, four rabbits, and one “various” were shot. Warter Priory achieved a memorable day in 1909 with 3,824 pheasants. A party of eight guns, including King Edward VII, achieved an outstanding bag in 1903, killing 3,948 pheasants in two days, while in 1906 another party, which also included the king, shot 4,310 pheasants in three days. As historian J. G. Ruffer has poignantly noted, “The big shoots were a curious phenomenon which dominated winter months of English society for about forty years.”
(From, "British Game Shooting in Transition, 1900-1945," John Martin, Agricultural History, Vol.85, 2011-04,p.204.)
If you are interested in cooking game, see this Exhibit at the University of the Fraser Valley. For many more recipes see, Food History.
