THE REARING OF UNDERWOOD FOR GAME COVERTS. 373 



excellent covert, and bears numerous fleshy purple berries, which 

 pheasants eat readily. 



The elder and its varieties are always exempt from the attacks 

 of hares and rabbits, and are possibly the least fastidious as to 

 soil or situation of any shrub. They will grow and thrive any- 

 where, except on wet marshy ground, or under a dense crop of fir 

 trees. "When they become overgrown, they can be cut half through 

 and allowed to fall to the ground, and in a few years they will 

 become very dense, and form a cover of which the pheasant seems 

 particularly fond. I attribute this fact to their preference for 

 covert where they are able to see around them, as until a pheasant 

 is wounded it does not care for too dense a covert. 



Fox covers are most economically, and possibly as densely 

 formed, by simply ploughing the land, reducing it to a good mould 

 and sowing whin seed, using about a bushel per acre, and then 

 giving a double course of the harrows. No good covert for the 

 fox is formed in high forest, unless only a very few trees are left 

 per acre, the fox preferring a densely-covered hiding-place where 

 his enemies cannot easily find him. In addition to the privet, 

 the sloe-thorn has often been used successfully for this purpose, 

 but it does not like a deep shade. 



The successful planting of coverts gives a pleasing character to 

 the woodlands ; and where the ground game is kept within 

 moderate limits, or is well killed down before the winter sets in, 

 the under growth in such cases is much more useful as covert, 

 and of a far moi'e ornamental appearance. 



VOL. XII., PART II. 



