190 GAME BIRDS AND WILD FOWL. 



in which I am now writing. If the ground under- 

 neath be covered with gorse so much the better. 

 With gorse below and spruce firs above, the night 

 shooter is sadly puzzled ; and I have observed that 

 old pheasants not only prefer these trees for their 

 roosting places, but resort to their branches at an 

 earlier period of the evening than to the more 

 exposed boughs of the oak, as if from a sense of 

 the greater security that they afford. At any 

 rate no large cover ought to be selected for the 

 preservation of pheasants, in a country where 

 night poaching is prevalent, that is not diversified 

 with some clumps or patches of firs or pines. 

 Such a precaution, with a fair supply of stuffed 

 or wooden pheasants, stuck by wires on deciduous 

 trees in other parts of the coppice on which 

 these worthies may be allowed to expend their 

 ammunition with impunity would greatly facili- 

 tate the nocturnal preservation of the pheasant in 

 any district where he is already established, and 

 might prevent many a bloody affray, and the loss 

 of many a faithful servant in a deadly encounter 

 with superior numbers, which must always be 

 equally deprecated by the sportsman and the 

 philanthropist. 



