158 PHEASANT SHOOTING, &C. 



haste, through fear of your getting up to him ; and (if 

 the wind should rise) driving the dispersed, and, con- 

 sequently, closest-lying birds to your beat, as fast as he 

 finds them. 



When staying in a town, take care not to let every 

 one know where you shoot, by pompously riding through 

 it with a display of guns and dogs ; but either send on 

 the latter in the dark, or take them closely shut up in 

 your dog-cart. If driving, cover your shooti rig-dress 

 with a box coat : if on horseback, ride out of the town 

 on some road diametrically opposite to where your sport 

 lies, arid then double back again on other roads, or by 

 crossing the country. If you return by daylight enter 

 the town again by this means, or at all events in the 

 most quiet and private manner, otherwise you will soon 

 have your beat (if on a neutral place) worked by every 

 townsman, who can muster a dog and gun. 



If there is one month worse than another for the 

 amusement of shooting, I should be apt to consider that 

 it is November. The warmer weather of September 

 and October is then gone by, and the birds become wild 

 and cunning. The fall of the leaf, with the sports of 

 rabbit, woodcock, snipe, and wildfowl shooting, are not 

 in general to be fully enjoyed till December and January ; 

 so that, in the event of a sportsman finding it necessary 

 to leave the country during the shooting-season, on any 

 business, the precise time for which might be at his own 

 option, I should advise him to choose this, the middle 

 month, for laying aside his gun. 



