390 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



terrier who suddenly discovers the rich harvest of 

 amusement that lies in a rough meadow, park, or 

 wood which is full of rahbits, that cannot pop away 

 from him underground as usual, may destroy half 

 your day's sport. 



If you have many rabbits on your preserve, 

 employ an adequate number of men to work their 

 burrows, and thus do the job, if you possibly can, in 

 three days, shooting the fourth day. If you have 

 only a few rabbits, ' doctor ' all their burrows in one 

 day, and shoot the next.* 



I will promise if you follow the instructions I have 

 given, you cannot fail to show your rabbits in good 

 style to the gun, provided you have a fair amount of 

 cover for them to shelter in when driven from their 

 burrows, and are also favoured with dry weather. 



If you have no shelter, or very little, and the 

 weather is unsettled, there is only one method of 



* In warrens and in closures wherein two or three thousand 

 rabbits are killed in one day's shooting, the preliminary arrange- 

 ments may imply that a score men have been hard at work daily for 

 three weeks, as in this case they may have to turn the rabbits two or 

 three times out of their burrows, or even dig the latter clean out. 

 Of course, if the rabbits are dug or turned out of their earths directly 

 they return to them, and are day after day for several weeks treated 

 in this manner, every rabbit in the warren on the day of shooting 

 will be above ground. If the weather is fairly fine, and there is an 

 abundance of cover for the rabbits to shelter in, all will be well ; but 

 if there is not sufficient shelter, and the weather is cold or wet, half 

 the rabbits will be dead or unable to run when the time for shooting 

 them arrives, and a man with the feelings of a true sportsman would, 

 under such conditions, wish he was at home. 



