1 68 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



sufficient allowance for such casualties, and be apt 

 to blame his keeper for showing fewer birds than 

 expected. For these reasons, keepers would rather 

 see all the ground game surrounded with nets, and 

 the pheasants killed at the closest range, than that a 

 bird or rabbit should go free. The question of high- 

 flying pheasants is one a keeper does not consider, 

 especially as he has only the hard work and anxiety 

 and no share in the day's sport. 



If, however, a host manages his own shooting, he 

 will, or should, endeavour to show his game so that it 

 taxes the skill of his friends to bag it. 



On some estates the coverts are planted as if 

 purposely to favour the shooters ; on others it may be 

 said they favour the escape of the birds. 



In the former case we probably see several woods 

 within a short distance of each other, so that if the 

 birds break away from the one they are found and 

 shot in another. 



In the latter case we perhaps have a large 

 straggling covert on the boundary of an estate, or 

 else small woods so far apart that when the birds are 

 driven from their shelter they alight in tbe fields and 

 hedgerows. 



It is extraordinary how pheasants breaking out of 

 a covert will appear as if swallowed up by the ground, 

 if they have no other wood at hand to fly to, and how 

 difficult it is, however large their number, to send 

 even half of them over the guns again. 



