FORMATION OF COVERTS. 47 



offer, when perched upon naked larches and other trees, at 

 night, is too strong to be resisted by many a lad or working 

 man in the vicinity, who, but for this particular allurement to 

 evil, might go on respectably and quietly enough. They 

 know that their duty towards their own sons is to keep them 

 out of needless temptations, and they are unwilling to expose 

 the sons of other and poorer men to trials which experience 

 shows they too often cannot resist. Some have forbidden all 

 night watching of these birds, trusting them entirely to the 

 protection of the pines and firs scattered in their plantations, 

 in the branches of which it is impossible for any one to see 

 the pheasants which happen to select them as a roosting- 

 place. Now, I have for twenty-two years preserved these 

 birds in very considerable numbers without any night watch- 

 ing, and in a country where all my neighbours have been 

 repeatedly visited by gangs of poachers, coming sometimes 

 from considerable distances, as well as by occasional depre- 

 dators of the vicinity. I resolved to reject all night watching, 

 and one of the first things that I did, as a very young man, was 

 to plant ten acres of spruce fir and Scotch pine in a central 

 and sheltered part of the estate, which might serve as an 

 impregnable roosting-place for pheasants. This was thirty 

 years ago and more. At ten years of age, the plantation 

 was already of great service, and at fifteen was invaluable. 

 As it has been regularly thinned, it is now as good as ever. 

 A number of birch-trees were intermixed, which were very 

 useful in drawing up and hastening the growth of the spruces 

 without exhausting the soil, as too great a multitude of firs 

 would have done. Nor do the pheasants resort to the birch 

 at night as they do to some other trees, larch especially, 

 because they find that its branches are not sufficiently 

 horizontal to afford commodious perches. 



" Ten years later I formed a second pheasant-roost of two 

 acres in extent, very near my house, and of this I have had 

 the full benefit for many years past. It is generally full of 

 pheasants, and not one of them is visible to the keenest eye in 



