124 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



as good as put over the guns. When they find 

 that every loophole of escape by their legs is barred, 

 they squat, and do not keep running about in a herd 

 like tame birds, which stop every now and again 

 and look up, as much as to say, ' Here's a state of 

 things ! What had we better do ?' On come the 

 beaters, and your wild birds have to make, up their 

 minds whether they will fly at all, and, if so, whether 

 over the guns or the beaters, or whether they will 

 lie low and chance being passed over. And a wild 

 pheasant that elects to lie low is cunning enough 

 not to budge unless almost trodden upon. And 

 they are dreadful offenders at breaking back. They 

 are wonderfully quick in noting that the sticks and 

 curses of beaters are less offensive than the banging 

 and expressions of disappointment of the men with 

 guns. 



It is especially in small coverts that wild birds 

 compare unfavourably with tame ones which can 

 be driven with a fair amount of certainty from 

 covert to covert, backwards and forwards, more or 

 less how you like ; but wild birds, when they can 

 see the guns standing in the open, very much prefer 

 to go back, no matter in what direction you try to 

 drive them. In big woods they give much better 

 results than hand-reared birds, fizzing up through 

 the tree-tops and away at a fine pace, instead of 

 flopping across the rides as tame birds mostly do. 

 Talking of pheasants fizzing up reminds me of a 



