146 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



fashion beside the nests with merely their heads 

 bitten off. 



I have myself known of as many as twenty nests, 

 containing nearly 200 eggs, rendered useless (hens killed , 

 eggs smashed or spoilt) during the course of one week 

 by a couple of foxes foraging for their cubs, and this, 

 too, when all precautions were taken to keep the 

 animals away by burning lights, chaining dogs to 

 trees at night, and so forth ; and notwithstanding the 

 popular and pretty, but delusive idea, that Nature 

 arranges, when a hen pheasant is on her nest, she is 

 devoid of any scent that could betray her position to 

 her natural enemies. 



There is only one solution of how to keep foxes and 

 pheasants, and that is by allowing the foxes to destroy 

 as many birds as they fancy, whether in pure mischief 

 or to support their cubs or themselves ! In fact, you 

 will have to rear an extra quantity of game for their 

 especial benefit. This course will not affect the sport 

 of the landlord who keeps a number of pheasants, as 

 he can spare a couple of hundred or so in the interests 

 of the local hunt ; but it may mean a complete loss of 

 sport to the man who can but afford a small head 

 of game in his woods. 



The mere drawing of the coverts will often scatter 

 the pheasants in all directions over the open fields, 

 many of them probably never returning. 



To avoid this routing out of your game, plant a 

 gorse covert of four or five acres a few fields distant 



