PHEASANT SHOOTING 



has arrived, men have had the first keen edge of their desire 

 taken off ; and, though they enjoy the sport as much as ever, 

 they are not so nervously anxious about it as on the first of 

 September. The consequence is that there is generally more 

 fun going on with a party of this kind than in partridge shoot- 

 ing ; also, it is not made quite so much a toil of. You start 

 after a good — perhaps late — breakfast, and a lounge over the 

 fire afterwards, discussing anything but the subject on hand, 

 and giving no one to suppose, as you infallibly do in September, 

 that in your opinion the world was created for the sake of 

 shooting. There is no particular skill required in choosing 

 your coverts or beating your ground. The nearest is the best 

 to begin with. 



' Here you are at the side of a nice ash spinney, intersected 

 with ditches, and sloping down to a brook in the middle. Will 

 you go inside or out ? Inside. Very well. Away goes the 

 stump of your cigar. Your shot-pouch is hitched round a 

 little ; or, if you use a breech-loader, the belt receives a final 

 tug. Here 's the place to get over. Now, then, are you all 

 right ? Very well. Let the dogs go ; and the day has begun. 

 The men knock at the stems of the ash-trees, and thrash the 

 bushes with their sticks, and probe every tuft of grass with their 

 nailed toes. The keeper roars venomously to some over- 

 zealous spaniel ; all together emit a mixture of sounds familiar 

 enough to shooters, but wholly indescribable in words, which 

 are considered calculated to invite, terrify, or deceive into 

 showing themselves, the birds and beasts who lurk beneath the 

 thick covert. Some unwary rabbit is usually the first victim. 

 But that one shot is always the signal, somehow or other, for 

 the commencement of a fusilade which is to last till sunset. 

 Hares and rabbits cross and recross, are killed and missed by 

 dozens, till at last you approach a rather thicker spot, or 

 perhaps a corner of the plantation. Then, from under your 

 feet, comes a sudden roar, as if a tiger had been sprung — so at 

 least it seems to you. A cock pheasant, finding further 

 progress impeded by the thorns, and uncomfortably pressed 



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