96 THE MASTER OF HOUNDS 



interests. Most of us concerned in such matters can 

 recall cases in which the officious friend has made bad 

 worse and a wide chasm of a slender rift, by blundering 

 in his intervention between his old schoolfellow the 

 Master and his firm friend the shooting-man. That the 

 latter has a perfect right to shoot his coverts when and 

 how he thinks fit is undeniable. The harm is done 

 when he carries beyond reasonable bounds (from the 

 hunting standpoint) his objection to having those 

 coverts drawn by hounds for some weeks before the 

 shoot. The degree to which the shooting-tenant is 

 justified in pressing his privilege of exclusion largely 

 depends on the number of hares in his coverts. The 

 mere fact of hounds drawing will of course make hares 

 lie out for days, and it may take a small army of keepers 

 half a week to get them back again. Where, however, 

 there are no hares, it does not signify at all if hounds 

 draw the coverts, for the pheasants, even if they leave 

 the covert for a day, will certainly return at night to the 

 particular covert in which they are fed or where they 

 have their particular barley stack. Moreover, it is a well- 

 known fact that hounds do not inspire in pheasants 

 quite all the fear that the keepers would have us believe ; 

 and, after a covert has been drawn once or twice, the 

 birds take very little notice, but merely perch high out 

 of their reach, or fly to the other end of the covert. If, 

 of course, rabbits are stopped out they will naturally 

 scratch in again a little, and it is probably the slight 

 extra labour entailed on them that the keepers resent. 



It may look as if in the course of these preliminary 

 remarks I have wandered from my subject, but this is 



