118 PHEASANTS 



both time and trouble, by relieving them 

 of their duties in picking up after a shoot. 



His misdeeds need no enumeration ; 

 every gamekeeper in a hunting country 

 knows well enough what he is capable of. 

 Fortunately we have here only to deal 

 with pheasants ; among partridges the fox 

 may prove an evil with which the most 

 resourceful keeper may find himself unable 

 to cope, but on the rearing-field and in 

 the covert good management will gener- 

 ally enable the keeper to hold his own, 

 if only he be blest with enough mother- 

 wit to pit against the rare cunning of his 

 adversary. 



For the cunning of the fox is a far 

 more tangible quality than most pro- 

 verbial attributes. To take but one 

 instance ; a fox has been seen, when a hen 

 pheasant fluttered away in front of him 

 after the time-honoured and somewhat 

 pathetic manner of so many bird mothers, 

 to give up the fruitless chase after a few 

 yards, return to the exact spot where he 

 first put her up, nose round until he had 



