160 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



often supposed. Bat all long tails do not come by their end 

 in the rain, or under the heavy handicapping of compulsory 

 flight over well-posted gunners ! There is that stray pheasant 

 we come across in the hedgerows when we have been out 

 shooting something else, who beguiles us into a long hunt 

 down the fallows until he gets into an old gravel pit in 

 company with a couple of hens; and a hare perhaps, and 

 gives us a very pretty shot as he leaves it. There is the 

 wandering bird who gets up under our noses far out in the 

 open marsh lands, from a spot far more promising for teal or 

 snipe than for any of his feather. We have even put up 

 pheasants when shooting grouse on heather, where never a 

 bush, much less a spinney or plantation, was within sight for 

 miles around. There is, indeed, hardly a place into which 

 these birds will not stray, and the rearer of game knows 

 this, and he must take the precaution to feed them well at 

 home if he is to keep within his own boundaries those birds 

 which will cost him little less than half a guinea a head 

 between egg-laying and larder. Personally, as we have said, 

 we do not much care for " corners " at cover side this autumn 

 weather, be it bright or misty. Birds at twenty shillings a 

 brace, though they cost us no more than their powder and 

 shot, are too much for us. Bather we prefer the fair quarry 

 of a strong-winged Exmoor cock pheasant, who keeps his 

 look-out amongst the stones and fern of the tors and turf 

 hills, and gets up with the noise and vigour of a bird of four 

 times his size. And we like those sea-shore pheasants of the 

 Devonshire combs, second to none in beauty of plumage and 

 robustness, which haunt the undercliff, and feed down to 

 high-water mark. We have had as pleasant a ramble as 

 could be desired, again, after the cocks that come with the 

 snow and frost, from goodness only knows where, to the 

 rhododendrons and yew hedges of Scot manses, or the laird's 

 outlying stackyards and last year's lambing pens. On all 

 such occasions of wandering sport the resulting "bag" would 

 look unconscionably foolish by the side of even a ^poor day's 



