THE PHEASANT 283 



(b) Drive pheasants on their feet away from home 



and then flush them homewards ; 



(c) Flush pheasants at a considerable distance from 



the guns ; 



(cf) Flush pheasants from a higher ground than that 

 on which the guns are placed. The keeper 

 who attempts to drive the birds against a 

 gale of wind should be conveyed at once to 

 the nearest lunatic asylum. 



Now these cardinal principles are enumerated on the 

 understanding that the keeper is expected " to show " 

 his pheasants in the best way possible. That is, he 

 is to bring them to the guns flying high and fast ; he 

 is not to present a number of " flapdoodlers " and low- 

 flying birds. The latter may please certain people 

 who are quite satisfied if they bring the thing they aim 

 at to the ground, but it is not sport. The great boast 

 of every keeper should be that his birds fly higher than 

 most and require some " stopping." Accordingly let 

 him remember that to produce such a result he must 

 do something more elaborate than send his beaters 

 in at one end of a covert and march them in a straight 

 line to the other. He must, in fact, push his pheasants 

 on their feet to a flushing-point and then allow " the 

 trouble" to begin. In saying as much, it will of 

 course be at once recognised that this can only be 

 done by careful arrangement of covert, beaters, stops, 

 and guns, and will require considerable study and 

 patience. 



