SCOLOPAX RUSTICOLA 27 



and soon one of them, missing a double shot, turns a cock my way and 

 he comes towards me in and ovit of the trees with his curious owl-like 

 flight, and though he escapes my first barrel the second brings him 

 down almost on my head. I then get a pheasant and miss another 

 cock, but finish up the beat with a nice right and left at a pair of 

 wood-pigeon. 



Counting our bag we find that B., our host, has six cock, a pheasant 

 and a rabbit, H. two pheasant and four cock, and myself a pheasant, 

 two pigeon and two cock. 



Our next beat is a narrow strip composed of scrub and holly 

 bushes intermixed with a few bigger trees fringing a ditch of running 

 water which here and there widens out into small patches of bracken- 

 covered swamp. This is too narrow for three guns, so B. goes ahead 

 and stands at the end, whilst we beat up to him. A start is made 

 by H. with a right and left at pheasant, and we then walk half-way 

 through before we get another shot, and we begin to think the birds 

 are not so thick after all. Here, however, from a dense patch of 

 holly bushes the dogs put up four cocks together and we have the 

 pleasure of accounting for all four, though, to level matters, we each 

 miss a comparatively easy shot immediately after. Yet again we 

 have four birds in the air at the same time, but we only drop three ; 

 two are picked up at once, and whilst hunting round for the third 

 another bird gets up between H. and myself and flies straight towards 

 me ; neither can shoot until he gets almost up to me, when he rises and 

 tries to dodge back but is bowled over with a lucky shot just in time. 



So on through the strip with constant shots all through its length 

 and, curiously enough, in this bit of cover we keep putting up the 

 birds three and four almost together with intervals in which we put 

 up none at all. The taller trees are scanty and the bracken very 

 withered, so the cock are all hiding under the small clumps of holly- 

 bushes and brambles at the very edge of the swampy pieces. The 

 shooting is easy in the comparative absence of the taller trees and 

 we find when we get through our beat that H. has nine birds to my 

 ten and that our host has beaten us both with twelve cock and a 

 pheasant. 



We do not have such luck, however, with our next beat, which is 

 a pine- wood with very little undergrowth and no water. Here we put 



