ORDEAL FOR YOUNG SPORTSMEN. 57 



school, an excellent shot, indefatigable, no day too long 

 for him, and no cover too strong. He might boast of 

 having as steady dogs as any in the kingdom, for they 

 were well kept, had plenty of work, and abundance of 

 game killed to them. This gentleman had what he 

 called his October grouse gim, with which I have heard 

 him say he could kill them at forty or fifty yards. 



The ordeal that I should like a young sportsman to 

 imdergo, to prove whether he was likely to turn out a 

 persevering and zealous sportsman of the old school in 

 cover shooting, would be this. There are in Oxfordshire 

 a chain of covers of about one thousand acres, known by 

 the name of the Quarters. They consist of three large 

 woods, two of these between three and four hundred 

 acres *, separated by a few fields of cultivated land. The 

 soil of these woods is a stiff clay, in some parts of a very 

 moist nature ; and to effect the drainage for the benefit 

 of the trees and underwood, rather deep and wide open 

 drains have been cut in various directions, mostly 

 covered with long grass, until a sharp frost destroys the 

 herbage, and exposes them in some degree to the view 

 of the sportsman, who has also to contend with a 

 phalanx of blackthorn, bramble, briar, thick underwood, 

 and in some parts long sedgy grass. The underwood 

 consists of fells of different ages, from one to twelve 

 years' growth. The trees are almost all oak, and gene- 

 rally rather stunted. These woods f belong to a connec- 



* It was in one of these woods, called Waterperry, that one of the 

 woodmen came in the spring to announce to tlie family, that he had seen 

 a woodcock sitting on its nest in the low cover. My sister-in-law went 

 with him to the wood, and approached cautiously to the spot ; she told 

 me she had plainly seen the brilliant black eyes of the bird ; she was sit- 

 ting close, and the young ones were hatched a few days aftei'n-ards. 



t In these woods some years ago, the martin cat was occasionally shot 



