lea\t:s from a game book. 147 



When the beat ended, it turned out that a stop, who 

 should have kept hidden in a ditch outside the cover, 

 had left his place to take up a position inside it, so 

 that every bird, seeing him as it ran to the end, had 

 thus been most unexpectedly headed back to me. It 

 is impossible to speak of these days in Balls Wood 

 without singing the praises of Matthews, the head 

 keeper, for of this oblong wood of nearly two 

 hundred acres, but three sides belong to the estate, 

 while the whole length of the fourth and longest 

 side runs parallel with a public highway, on the 

 other side of which are extensive covers not over care- 

 fully preserved. From this description any pheasant 

 preserver will see that it is only by never-failing 

 vigilance that the birds can be held together in such 

 good numbers. 



On the 7th and 8th of December, Hall Barn gave six 

 of us 406 head, nearly all pheasants ; and then on the 

 11th I revisited Langley Park, Norwich, which is not 

 to be mixed up with Sir Robert Harvey's Langley Park, 



near Slough. 



L 2 



