PHEASANT 231 



candlelight, walked hard all day in a deluge of rain, 

 bagged three cock pheasants ; gloriously out-manoeuvred 

 all the other shooters ; came home very satisfied, and 

 dined off one of the birds." If this is not pheasant- 

 hunting, what else, may I ask, ought it to be called ? 



Far different conditions from those above cited hold 

 good as with regard to the general run of the best 

 pheasant-shooting at this period. In these times the 

 shooting of pheasants is an altogether different sport, 

 for, in the first place, the month of October has usually 

 run its course before the shooting of these fine game- 

 birds is seriously entered upon. In the Sandringham 

 coverts, for instance, it is an unwritten law that pheasant- 

 shooting is not indulged in prior to the King's birthday, 

 which, as all Britons are aware, is on November the 9th. 

 In many other well-stocked coverts in this country 

 November is well advanced, or in some cases, even, 

 December may have arrived before the pheasants are 

 tackled in right good earnest. 



Then, too, the sport itself has entered upon quite 

 another phase, the shooting being entirely dissimilar in 

 character and, be it said, usually of a far more difficult 

 nature than the pheasant-shooting of olden times. In 

 this difficulty alone lies the chief charm and excitement 

 of modern pheasant-shooting. Under ordinary con- 

 ditions it has been proved that a cock pheasant, once 

 fairly under way, will travel at the rate of upwards of 

 forty miles per hour. With the assistance of the wind 

 this velocity may possibly be increased to fifty or even 

 to sixty miles an hour when half a gale is blowing over 

 the tall tree-tops. Therefore, to effectually stop a bird 

 moving high overhead at a velocity equalled only by the 

 fastest express trains, or about a mile a minute, is, of a 



