RABBITS, PARTRIDGES, PIGEONS 163 



the hole ; after shooting, or shooting at, one rabbit 

 that has bolted, keep quiet and wait till you are 

 sure there are not others below being hunted by 

 the ferret ; when it becomes clear that the ferret 

 has lain up with a rabbit and must be dug out, put 

 your gun at the half-cock forthwith, or, better, take 

 the cartridges out. 



But the kind of rabbiting which you enjoy 

 perhaps most of all when you are in form, and 

 perhaps least of all when you are '^ clean off," is 

 shooting the small isolated patches and single 

 bushes of furze on commons and wild places. We 

 are still dealing, remember, with the method of 

 shooting rabbits that are for the most part put up 

 and hustled about by dogs, rather than beaters, 

 though a beater or two will always help to keep the 

 sport lively by encouraging the dogs and aiding 

 them in very thick spots. Rabbits very often 

 travel quickly in the open, quicker than a hare 

 when first roused ; as we have seen, too, they can 

 run hard enough to please most gunners even in 

 thick covert, when a yelping pack of terriers and 

 spaniels are in hot pursuit, chasing them by sight. 

 But it is my notion that the quickest rabbits of 

 all are those dislodged by half-frantic dogs and 

 beaters (who thoroughly enter into the spirit of 

 the thing) from these small '^ bunches," as the 

 country folk often call the isolated bushes of 

 furze, &c. 



Dogs, even in the early part of the day, whilst 

 still fresh and keen as mustard on rabbit after 



