148 LEAVES FEOM A GAME BOOK. 



My host, Frank Lawson, apologised for asking us to 

 shoot covers "a second time through," but, as will be seen, 

 this was quite unnecessary, as in four days our party of 

 Sir George Prescott, Prescott Westcar, Colonel Yilliers 

 Bagot, Colonel Keene, and Cecil Block garnered 1602 

 head, of which 1312 were pheasants. Hamond, the 

 head keeper at Langley, understood right well how 

 to make his birds fly high over the guns, and this 

 though the most of the covers were quite flat. In 

 the Park none of them had any outside fence or hedge 

 and were merely wired ofi", while in all these covers 

 the undergrowth was cut back for about a hundred 

 yards, and the guns being placed nearly a like distance 

 from the fence, the pheasants, being able both to see 

 and hear them, naturally ceased to run forward as soon 

 as they were deprived of the shelter of the under- 

 growth; then, as the beaters drew near, they would fly 

 up through the trees, and thus passed high over the 

 shooters, and that they did this to some purpose will be 

 admitted when it is stated that at one stand, out of some 

 400 birds sent over six guns, but 120 were laid low. 



