164 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



the shots.' On my asking how that happened, he 

 said : ' Gawd A'mighty knows I doan't.' Another 

 old fellow, who got most of his living by shooting 

 pigeons, was asked if he could fetch them off the 

 tops of some tall beeches. * Yes, I can,' he 

 answered, * but I has to grind me teeth and pull 

 devilish 'ard.' To show what a lot of stopping 

 pigeons take when shot at on the ground, I give an 

 experience of an old keeper friend. He saw that 

 the ground beneath a beech-tree was * reg'lar blue ' 

 with pigeons, so he crept along a ditch till he was as 

 near as he could go without being seen. He fired 

 one barrel into the blue on the ground without 

 effect, but eight pigeons fell to his second, on the 

 wing, and, following the direction of the survivors, 

 he picked up eight more. 



I never have been able to get a real good family 

 shot at pigeons, though several times I have come 

 very near it. Once I came to a gap leading into 

 some barley stubbles and young clover, saw a single 

 pigeon within a dozen yards, and shot it. Just 

 round the corner a huge flock rose within twenty 

 yards. Another time, one cold day in early March, 

 I was going round a chain of fields of young clover, 

 on which there were always crowds of pigeons. (As 

 they kept in great flocks, and had so many fields to 

 go to, and there were no trees, I never got more 

 than odd birds.) Luckily a miniature blizzard came 

 on just as I had located a huge flock on an open 



