x. PHEASANT SHOOTING (PART /) 167 



THE MANAGEMENT OF THE COVERTS DURING A DAY*S 

 SHOOTING, AND HOW TO SHOW HIGH BIRDS 



Manage your own covert shooting ; never leave 

 this most interesting occupation to a keeper.* Re- 

 member always that a keeper's sole idea is to kill 

 everything he can in a wood ; for he has reared and 

 protected its occupants through long days and nights 

 for months, and he is naturally anxious to show a 

 good list of slain as a proof of his success with his 

 birds. If the aiming is at fault, or birds break away 

 without being shot at, the bag may be small in pro- 

 portion to the amount of game the keeper is well 

 aware he has produced. A master might not make 



* If an owner of shooting takes no active part in the management 

 of his coverts, it is often but a question of luck whether his pheasants 

 are mobbed at a corner escape without being shot at or afford 

 good sport to the guns ! There is interest in every moment of the 

 day >f you manage your own shooting ; and whether you do this with 

 good or ill success, do it ; you will learn by experience. To hear a 

 man ordered about by his head keeper, and to see his woods driven 

 this way, that way, and t'other way, and all ways but the right one, 

 is a pitiable sight, especially when one considers that what is mere 

 drudgery to the keeper should be a fund of amusement and excite- 

 ment for the master. No amount of money will purchase ' sport,' 

 though it may supply the materials for obtaining it if these are 

 properly applied. Here is a story that always amuses me in con- 

 nection with the above dictum. A City magnate, utterly ignorant of 

 the gun and its use, once hired an extensive pheasant preserve, and 

 wrote to tell his head keeper he was about to come down with a party 

 of friends to shoot the coverts on October 1st ! The keeper having sent 

 word the visit had better be delayed, for the leaves were as yet too 

 thick in the woods for shooting, was peremptorily informed ' that the 

 date could not be changed, and he must take care to have the leaves 

 off the trees by the time his master arrived ! ' 



