60 EEMINISCEXCES OF A SPOETSMAN. 



I had been wounded. I soon made him easy on this 

 point, but jokingly told him he must purchase me a new 

 shooting jacket. 



I think you generally find that pheasants are more 

 on the alert, and rise quicker in the afternoon than 

 in the morning ; which may be accounted for by their 

 feeling a desire to go and feed in the stubbles. Phea- 

 sants after they have been frequently shot at, become 

 fully aware that their safety is better secured by their 

 legs than their wings, and if the covers are open at bot- 

 tom, as the beech woods in Buckinghamshire and Oxford- 

 shire, they then run like greyhounds, and your only 

 chance of getting shots, is to have men or boys to drive 

 them towards you. I hardly know a more wily bird 

 than an old cock pheasant, who on many occasions dis- 

 plays skilful manoeuvres to save his life. The hen bird 

 is rather stupid when compared to the male, lies much 

 closer, and if allowed to be shot, you soon find that you 

 have less difficulty in getting shots at them than at the 

 male birds. For the dinner table, the hens have a decided 

 advantage, being more tender and delicate. I recollect 

 once being out with a party pheasant shooting, when 

 we marked down an old cock pheasant in a small shaw^, 

 and when we had taken our stations round it we put a 

 brace of spaniels in to make him rise ; although the 

 spaniels were hunting him backwards and forwards in 

 this small cover it was more than ten minutes before he 

 took wing, when his fate was sealed. 



It is a good plan, in order to prevent the pheasants, 

 hares and rabbits running out of the wood, to have 

 some white feathers tied to twigs a foot or two from the 

 ground, which blowing about, scares the game, and 

 keeps it in the cover. This is frequently done on the 



