96 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



when the young birds run about these open spaces 

 hawks and rooks can plainly see them and more 

 readily carry them off. 



With small patches cut in the grass, the birds 

 instantly dart into covert on being alarmed , whereas 

 they will often stupidly scurry along a ride for some 

 distance, and thus offer an easy aim for the talons of 

 a swooping hawk. 



Three or four poles with hawk traps will be 

 necessary in a rearing field one near its centre, the 

 others at the corners ; and do not neglect to wage a 

 ceaseless warfare on all other vermin, by means of 

 trap and gun, so long as the field contains a coop. 



Place sticks in the rearing field to mark the sub- 

 sequent positions of each of the coops. The coops 

 can be arranged facing the south-west (or sun) in 

 long parallel rows, the rows being twenty yards apart, 

 fronts to backs, and the coops in their rows twenty 

 yards one from the next. 



Near each stick lay three or four fir branches, one 

 over the other, to be afterwards used as shelters for 

 the young birds, and to dry the spots of ground on 

 which the coops will first be set, should coops have 

 been employed for hatching. 



If the hens were set in boxes, place the coops in 

 position three or four days before transporting the 

 hens and their broods to them from the nesting boxes, 

 so that the chicks may not be introduced to a damp 

 soil. 



