206 Wild Birds and their Haunts 



estates there are bad seasons when each bird costs £2, if 

 all the expenses are reckoned up closely ; and if a manorial 

 lord wishes to circulate his wealth in this fashion for the 

 good of the country, pray do not seek to make the taxation 

 intolerably burdensome, or he will go abroad to spend it. 



THE COVERT. 



The best pheasantries have their home and distant 

 coverts, which usually take a parallelogram or curvilinear 

 form. They abound with fir, larch, yew, birch, ash and 

 sycamore, and " rides " are cut through a dense under- 

 growth of rhododendrons, hazels, willow; holly, laurel, 

 elder, guelder-rose, snowberry, privet, and barberry. The 

 plantations enclose oblong patches tilled for buck-wheat 

 and other small crops, which can be applied for feeding 

 the ' ' chicks of the covert," and keep them from wander- 

 ing away to other "liberties." In the very heart of 

 these Phasianic Elysian Fields are the rearing grounds, 

 much divided by wire fencing, and overlooked by the 

 upper windows of the head-keeper's brick cottage, while at 

 different points are kenelled watch-dogs, whose breed 

 or training disallows of continuous barking except when 

 provoked by intruders, so that the preserved area re- 

 mains as fearsome to poachers as it was under the old 

 dispensation of man-traps and spring guns. George 

 Wotherspoon, one keeper so stationed, to whom I came 

 by recommendation on my tour, very aptly quoted from 

 Holy Writ : ' ' The lines are fallen on me in pleasant 

 places ; yea, I have a goodly heritage." He readily 

 conducted me around an old-fashioned flower-garden, 

 along an aisle between lilacs, laburnums, and rhododen- 

 drons in bloom, along one side of a cherry orchard, and 

 eventually planted me on a bench facing the extensive 

 rearing-fields, where refreshment was served. After 

 about half an hour's chat I had to undergo a punctilious 

 introduction to a couple of under-keepers. 



FAMILY AFFAIRS. 



The lord of the manor, or his lessee, wants as many 

 pheasants for the autumn shooting as can be conveniently 



