280 PHEASANTS 



fear then of pheasants dropping in their flight, 

 which is often such a bugbear to me here. 



Two Typical Rises. — We have one magnificent- 

 looking rise here ; the birds have been run nearly 

 a mile from their home in the valley, and been 

 pushed up a strip, across a public road, and into 

 a wood beyond, some 300 feet above their home. 

 The guns are 100 feet below the flushing point, 

 and the trees are 40 feet high. Everything looks 

 propitious — surely screamers must ensue. But no, 

 instead of screamers a series of good birds come 

 out of the wood, set their wings, and glide over 

 our heads towards their home — difficult to stop 

 if you like — amusing, annoying to shoot, but 

 downright heartbreaking to me. 



The trouble is obvious; the birds, with their 

 home well below them, hug and conform to the 

 slope of the ground, only troubling to fly high 

 enough to clear the belt of trees immediately behind 

 the guns, as this rudimentary sketch may explain. 

 This rise has worried me for five years, and I 

 have tried various remedies to stop this drooping 

 tendency. 



First I thought that perhaps the birds did not 

 see the guns, as they were standing against a 

 dark background of trees ; so I made large white 

 screens 6 feet square and set them up behind the 

 guns, but it made no difference. Then I erected 

 dummy figures, garbed in violent colours, in 

 front of the guns, with the hope that the birds 

 would see them and cease to drop — again no result. 



