RABBITS, PARTRIDGES, PIGEONS 145 



storage room is a boon. It is possible you may 

 be tempted to hide your rabbits when these become 

 irksome by their weight, but you will scarcely care 

 to put your pheasant in a bush till you come back 

 that way later, and nothing would induce you to 

 treat a woodcock so. 



However, at the moment I am picturing you as 

 out in the covert, with one shooting companion 

 and the gamekeeper. The method when shooting 

 rabbits with dogs is for the guns to take in strips the 

 covert chosen for the day. The keeper will walk 

 between the two guns at a distance from either of, 

 say, sixty yards. But the extent of covert covered 

 by the guns and the keeper will vary according to 

 the height and thickness of the underwood and 

 undergrowth, the amount of ground at the disposal 

 of the party, and the abundance or scarcity of 

 game. If there is plenty of covert and little game, 

 and the underwood is low, so that the members of 

 the party can see one another at some distance 

 of¥, then the plan will naturally be to take broad 

 *' drifts," to cover much ground at a time. If there 

 is not much covert to shoot through and game 

 is abundant, naturally the tendency will be to 

 take far narrower ^* drifts." A certain number of 

 rabbits, with a few hares, in the course of the day 

 will be dislodged from their forms ^ by the shooters 



^ The " form " is the smooth place, commonly slightly hollowed out, 

 where the rabbit or hare squats, resting through the day. Hares 

 choose nearly always an open spot to squat in, or at most avail themselves 

 of a bunch of grass. Rabbits in high wood, where there is little or no 



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