146 O'er Crag and Torrent 



amounting to seventy-eight pheasants, one 

 woodcock, and two rabbits. 



The next wood we had to shoot was 

 about a quarter of a mile distant, and was 

 celebrated as being one that gave very lofty, 

 difficult shooting ; for the birds, after being 

 put up, came right across a small valley and 

 over the guns, who were posted on a level 

 stretch of ground opposite the covert across 

 this valley. As can easily be imagined, when 

 the birds came over the guns they were 

 going not only very high, but at a most tre- 

 mendous pace. Each of the shooters, with 

 his loader and second gun, having taken up 

 his numbered stand, a start was made, and 

 for a short space of time nothing could be 

 heard. A few minutes elapsed when we 

 heard the tap, tap, tap of the beaters, then 

 an old cock pheasant came out very high ; 

 but suspecting danger, I suppose, doubled 

 round and back instead of continuing his 



