PHEASANT SHOOTING 171 



biggest *' shoots," assure beginners that such is not 

 the case. In fact no bird takes more killing, or is 

 harder to shoot neatly, than a really high pheasant 

 well on the wing. 



To give some idea of the extent to which 

 pheasants have increased during the last ninety or 

 a hundred years : I remember reading in an old 

 game-book kept at Riddlesworth Hall, in Norfolk 

 — which in those days was owned by the famous 

 racing man Mr. T. Thornhill, and, after Holk- 

 ham, was rightly looked upon as one of the best 

 sporting estates in the eastern counties — the follow- 

 ing : ^* To-day we killed ninety-nine cock pheasants, 

 a feat never before performed in Norfolk, and not 

 likely to be done again." This was in the year 

 18 14, and the danger and folly of trying to 

 dip into the future, and predict what is likely to 

 happen, has of course long since been proved in 

 this part of England, where huge bags are of 

 frequent occurrence. Within the last few years 

 over two thousand pheasants have been shot in a 

 day at Sandringham and other places in Norfolk, 

 Suffolk, and elsewhere ; estates where notably large 

 scores have been made, outside the eastern coun- 

 ties, being Croxteth Hall, Lord Sefton's Lancashire 

 estate ; Bradgate, during the reign of the late Lord 

 Stamford of racing fame ; and Highclere Castle, 

 where the present Lord Carnarvon has had some 

 immense bags, and where in 1902 a party of five 

 guns, of which I was one, got 1302 pheasants in 

 a day. 



