PHEASANT SHOOTING. 233 



them across the march being generally exaggerated, as when 

 driven from the ground they are accustomed to frequent, pheasants 

 will always endeavour to return thither. Another essential to 

 success in covert-shooting is the judicious placing of stoppers ; 

 late in the season more especially, wTFen the birds have probably 

 been disturbed, and are wild and unsettled, these are even more 

 important than beaters, and should be placed at angles of coverts, 

 or where hedge-rows and the like impinge upon the main wood, 

 else numerous birds will steal away and escape. 



Personally, I confess to a preference for a form of sport less 

 artificial, and one in which the skill and knowledge required 

 are more centred in the shooter himself than in his servants. 

 A high, rocketing pheasant at a battue is doubtless not such an 

 easy object to bring down as would appear, and offers a more 

 difficult shot than one which gets up a few yards in front of a 

 setter's nose on the edge of a turnip-field or bit of open covert ; 

 but in my humble opinion there is no getting away from the fact 

 that there is more of sport about the latter performance, and that 

 a day with the keeper and the dogs along the hedge-rows and 

 thin strips of outlying covert is more enjoyable than a hot 

 corner in the home preserves. 



One of the most pleasant covert-shoots I can recollect was that 

 in which I used to take part year after year on the banks of 

 Tweed. My host, the laird, had a fad in regard to his pheasants, 

 and, except outlying bits of wood, never touched his best 

 coverts until the last week of the season ; then we shot them 

 every day until the 3ist, and began salmon-fishing the very next. 

 the opening day, the 1st of February. At that time of the 

 year, however, fishing on Tweed was often a precarious pastime, a 



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