ON SHOOTING. 179 



IV. 



"ROUGH DAYS." 



PERHAPS the most enjoyable " rough days " in the more 

 accessible parts of Great Britain are those spent on the 

 " outsides ' or undefined beats of large estates, those 

 beats which are not exactly moor or covert or arable, 

 but a happy blending of all three, with possibly a snipe- 

 bog added : programme varied to meet any emergency ; 

 an impromptu drive for blackcocks, the birds being first 

 located and the guns then posted as near them as possible ; 

 some turnip-fields driven away from the outlying coverts 

 (excluded for convenience from the orthodox covert days, 

 and where the existence of the birds is apt to be precarious) 

 to which the cock pheasants, curling back high over the guns, 

 placed in full view behind the beaters, afford incomparably 

 better shots than if attacked ignominiously from the rear ; 

 a bit of mossland on which the pick-up may include half-a- 

 dozen varieties. Such rough days — " what-not " days an 

 old Lanarkshire keeper used to call them — are often produc- 

 tive of results as substantial as they are varied. But they 

 involve the employment of a considerable staff, are under- 

 taken by a party of guns and are to a great extent dependent 

 upon game preservation. So, indeed, are the days obtainable 

 on ground itself indifferently preserved and dependent for its 

 stock on the proximity of a carefully managed estate. Here, 

 the main object is to secure the game, whatever its nature, 

 the quality of the shots afforded being a secondary considera- 

 tion. This involves — qua pheasants — killing them early, 

 before the shortage of " wild " food has led them to harbour 

 permanently in the coverts of neighbour Croesus. An 



