io Practical Game Preserving. 



and reserve the consideration of wholesale preserving for 

 the purposes of the battue for another time. 



It must be admitted that there is more than one way of 

 going to work ; indeed, most successful preservers have their 

 own or their keeper's own particular system. It would, 

 however, be useless and unprofitable to consider half-a-dozen 

 different ways ; one good practical one is sufficient, and if 

 it requires moderating or extending to suit individual 

 occasions, that must be left to the intelligence of the pre- 

 server. Too much dissertation and too many capital plans 

 often end in nothing or next to nothing. Given, then, our 

 coverts and woods, all quite destitute of any pheasants 

 whatever, the plan generally recommended would be to breed 

 and hand-rear some birds, and, even then, repeating the 

 process annually until a head of game were established. 

 Under the circumstances, this is an impolitic mode of going 

 to work, and the more practical and quickly successful way 

 is to form a large rough pen for the rearing of some birds, 

 in the particular covert most suited. 



The site selected must be where there is an abundance 

 of low covert, such as small fir-saplings, brambles, holly 

 and laurel bushes, while the larger trees must consist of 

 spruce and larch. Let the site be well in the centre of 

 the covert, and quite secure from disturbance. The space 

 enclosed should be for, say, one dozen hens at most, thirty 

 yards long by fifteen wide. The best way of enclosing it 

 is to use wire netting attached to posts or the stems of the 

 trees, of the height of about eight feet, and pegged down 

 to the ground. At one end or side a gateway must be 

 made. The soil within the pen must be dry, and produce 



