94 



=^^ 



Figure 19-A.- 



Pheasant beaters in uniform. Taken at the end of a day's shoot on the 

 Rutherfurd Stuyvesant and Winthrop Rutherfurd estates. 



the side which the beaters approached one encountered first a row of trees, 

 next came a strip of buckwheat, followed by another row of trees. A 

 strip of millet came next and then a third row of trees, flanked by a strip 

 of corn. The outer edge of the covert, in front of which most of the guns 

 were placed, was bordered with an arbor-vitse hedge. This shrub grows 

 so close to the ground that it almost inevitably precludes any chance of 

 birds running out instead of flying. It serves also to hide the guns from 

 the birds. The majority of the guns faced the direction from which the 

 drive came, but one gun was placed on either side and one in the rear. 



The coverts were arranged as nearly as possible in a circle and the last 

 drive of the day was made toward the center. All this, of course, mini- 

 mized the chances of driving the birds off the place in the shooting. 



LOCATING BIRDS IN COVERTS.— The rearing fields at Allamuchy 

 were in the vicinity of a majority of the coverts, and the young birds were 

 allowed to locate in the latter as they grew strong enough to fly over the 

 fence siuTounding the field. In order to stock outlying covers, broods 

 were taken there with their foster mothers when six to eight weeks old and 

 fed until weaned, by which time they would be well established. INIr. 

 Dunn states that he found, once a pheasant started roosting in a covert, 

 it took a great deal of driving and shooting to make him stay away. 



Game fowl were sometimes employed to induce young pheasants to 

 roost. As soon as the birds commence to roost the danger of loss by 

 vermin is greatly diminished, of course. 



