RABBITS, PARTRIDGES, PIGEONS 151 



yourself time. As for woodcocks, it is excusable if 

 you shoot at them even a somewhat desperately long 

 shot, should they rise wild. You will not often get 

 a woodcock which is more than forty-five yards off, 

 I think ; but it is an easy bird to stop if you can 

 manage to strike it. A very few shots kill a wood- 

 cock. In regard to winged woodcocks, I cannot 

 say whether they will run or not. I have never 

 known of a case, but keepers and others have told 

 me they will run now and then when winged, a little 

 way at any rate. Winged cock pheasants are rare 

 sprinters ; hens, on the whole, I think, less so. As 

 to hares — may you kill yours outright. The cry 

 of a wounded hare is not good to hear. Do not 

 try long shots at hares ; especially desist if they 

 are travelling away from you. Whilst in the 

 coverts you may from time to time meet with 

 barn as well as tawny owls, which rest by day in 

 the ivied oaks, &c. Leave them alone ; they are 

 not for the sportsman's gun : neither are kestrels. 

 At the carrion crow, another bird of the coverts, 

 you will not, I fancy, often get a chance. The 

 keeper has certain devices — which I cannot bring 

 myself in the least to like — for keeping down the 

 crows. We have only one this winter; all his com- 

 panions are dead : he, grown cunning even beyond 

 his kind, lingers on. He has nothing to fear so far 

 as I am concerned. 



This method of walking the low underwoods and 

 shooting with dogs resembles in the main partridge- 

 shooting where the birds are not driven ; except 



