126 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



get plenty of the spangles to be found on the under- 

 sides of fallen oak-leaves. 



Though, the night before my shoot, I went to bed 

 confident of a good day on the morrow, I did not 

 have a good night. I seemed to be dreaming all 

 the time of shooting my wood. How we beat and 

 beat, and never flushed a pheasant never so much 

 as saw one running among the underwood, which 

 seemed to be so thin that one could see through 

 it from ride to ride ! And then it seemed that I was 

 not beating, but standing as one of the guns at the 

 best beat, according to the plan of beating which I 

 had arranged. Pheasants seemed to be getting up 

 in a continuous stream, but my gun vanished each 

 time I tried to shoot. Breakfast restored my con- 

 fidence. We had a capital day. The bag was 

 ninety-two pheasants ; of course, it ought to have 

 been a hundred. Everyone was pleased, myself 

 most of all. I got some tips. But what were they 

 compared to success ? 



I am one of the many admirers of a tall pheasant. 

 Frequently I have been obliged to prolong my 

 admiration thereof while two little wreaths of smoke 

 have wandered from the muzzle of my gun. Next 

 to having a go at them myself, I enjoy putting good 

 birds over other guns, but I have grown very sick of 

 it when the shooting has been a mere farce. Many 

 a time I have rushed birds over the guns to shorten 

 the annoyance of seeing them missed. Here is a 



