294 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



These traits may all be made use of in causing birds to 

 fly high where, without artifice, they would not rise 10 yards. 



For instance, assume that it is wished to beat a covert which 

 has pheasants and possesses only a few trees for roosting, and 

 none that will make a bird mount to get over them. That does 

 not matter. Out of just such a covert the author has seen the 

 most pretty pheasant shooting. The way of it was this. All 

 the birds were run out into an adjoining broom-field, from which 

 in the ordinary way the pheasants could have been driven back 

 to cover with the beaters re-starting at the other side of them, 

 and at the end of the field farthest from the covert, without 

 any of the shooting being more than moderate in difficulty. In 

 the ordinary way of beating, stops would have prevented the 

 pheasants running out at the far end of the broom-field, and 

 when the beaters went round to join these stops, leaving the 

 guns under the wood and on the field side of it, the trouble 

 would begin, because in this case the pheasants would never fly 

 very high. But a totally different complexion can be given to 

 this shooting by a very slight alteration of the plan of campaign. 

 In the first place, instead of half a dozen boys being sent round 

 to stop the pheasants from running clean through the broom- 

 field, a few of the most trustworthy men are sent on this 

 business, with instructions to tap sticks occasionally, but to 

 speak not at all, and above all never to show. The object is to 

 prevent the birds finding out what is making the tapping noise, 

 and if they see boys they will know directly what is the cause. 

 By this means the other side of the field of broom farthest 

 away from the covert is converted into a mysterious land, one 

 into which no self-respecting pheasant will enter on any account. 

 Having run out the pheasants into the broom, and placed the 

 guns between the field and the wood, instead of driving the 

 pheasants back towards the wood, the beaters will be most 

 successful in making pheasants fly high if they attempt to drive 

 them on, past the mystery men at the farther end of the field. 

 Nothing will make the birds go : they will all come back to their 

 own covert ; but instead of rising wild and flying low, they 

 are now as it were between the devil and the deep sea. As 



