DIRECTIONS FOR THEASAXT SHOOTING. 55 



outskirts), make your reconnaissance quietly over the 

 corn fields, without a dog, about foiu: o'clock in the after- 

 noon, when you may be almost sure of seeing the phea- 

 sants feeding. If the adjacent woods have full grown 

 oak trees, and the season for acorns be good, you may 

 then fairly calculate that some pheasants are still in the 

 wood to feed on the acorns, which are a favourite food 

 of these birds. Should you have a wood in your neigh- 

 bourhood, part of which belongs to you, and the remainder 

 to other proprietors, if you should not have obtained the 

 exclusive right of shooting in it, and the cover being the 

 property of several individuals, and therefore difficult to 

 preserve, then I recommend you should be at the wood 

 with pointers or spaniels (the latter if the underwood 

 is strong) at six o'clock in the morning ; and although 

 at the end of the last season it was cleared of game, if 

 corn fields are adjacent to it, two or three guns will most 

 likely bag four or five brace of pheasants and some hares 

 and rabbits. 



On the 1st of October, if you know of one or two 

 nides of pheasants being bred on the outskirts of your 

 estate, or on neutral ground, you should of course take 

 the field early in the morning for the attack of the 

 young birds. We find in " The Spectator," that the 

 favourite character of Addison, Sir Eoger de Coverley*, 

 adopted the system of going " Some distance from his 



* Wheu covers have been -well beat in eveiy pai-t, it is advisable to do 

 the same on the outside, and if there should be any thick hedgercfw-s, 

 small patches of furze or brakes, these also should be closely beaten, as 

 the pheasants, particularly cocks, frequently leave the -wood to take 

 shelter there. Nothing is more detrimental to pheasant shooting, than 

 wild spaniels that chase hares and rabbits, as they cbive the pheasants 

 away. 



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