288 PHEASANTS 



is fit for the work, the right answer is 

 generally 'no,' for there is little pleasure 

 in shooting draggled birds. Covert- 

 shooting is essentially a fine weather 

 sport. 



In less sophisticated days the guests 

 to be met at shooting parties had ways 

 that were often weird and wonderful, 

 and writers on sport of twenty and thirty 

 years ago were constantly impressing on 

 their readers the importance of waiting 

 until a pheasant has passed the line of 

 their neighbour's head before discharging 

 the piece, of carrying the gun in some 

 approved manner, of keeping the place 

 allotted by the host, and so forth. Such 

 matters have become axiomatic, only in 

 one point is a tendency to more careless 

 ways still noticeable — the provision of 

 loaders. Many guns have always their 

 trained loaders with them, but, one way 

 or another, there is generally one casual 

 loader to be provided at a shooting party, 

 and it is quite astonishing to find how 

 often no trouble has been taken to dis- 



