A CONTRAST IN SHOOTING 175 



ten shots in succession, and hardly missing anything the 

 whole day that got up within shot of him. But this I 

 take to mean within ten or fifteen yards of the gun. 

 Now, in our open fields the birds are often extremely 

 wild. Late in the season, in crossing the first field, when 

 side by side, a covey got up about forty yards or more 

 from us and flew towards the hedge, over which they 

 very quickly disappeared. But I fired and killed a 

 brace, one falling each side of it. Mr. Wreford did not 

 fire his gun off, but, in great astonishment, said : 

 ' I never saw it done like that before.' 



I asked him, ' Why did you not shoot ?' and he replied : 



I 1 thought they were out of all distance, they get up 

 so much closer to us in Devonshire.' 



I have previously, I think, mentioned Mr. Wreford's 

 name in connection with the notion of keeping the sheep 

 off the Downs and watering the gallops. In both cases 

 he was the originator of the idea. The water-carts were 

 tried by Lord George Bentinck, but the system was 

 found too expensive for practical use or, at least, did 

 not give compensating results, the water being too far off 

 and the undertaking was abandoned. The other idea 

 was more successful. Mr. Wreford argued that, as in 

 the young plantations, where sheep did not go, the grass 

 was not only longer, but the herbage thicker, and 

 consequently more retentive of moisture and better able 

 to stand the effects of dry weather than where it was 

 cropped by sheep, the Downs also would be improved if 

 they were kept off them. At Danebury the Downs have 

 been so preserved until this day. 



Mr. Wreford was a man of good common-sense, 

 prudent and careful. He was a rationalist, believing 

 only in what he could see ; and he used to say ' he 

 should like to live here as long as he could, knowing 



