PHEASANT-SHOOTING 205 



laugh, he exclaimed, " Ma foi, Monsieur, la parure est 

 Anglaise, mats Vhomme est Frangais.** 



To return from this digression, I resume my pen for the 

 first of October, the commencement of the regular season 

 for all rural sports. Fox-hunting now begins in earnest, 

 pheasant-shooting, coursing, hare-hunting, wood-cock, 

 snipe, and wild-fowl shooting, now in turn claim the 

 attention of the various sportsmen. In wet weather 

 pheasants are very reluctant to rise on the wing, and will 

 run long distances, particularly old cock birds. The 

 best time for shooting them is (while the coverts are thick, 

 and before the fall of the leaf) in the afternoon, when they 

 draw wing out of the woods to the neighbouring stubble 

 fields or turnips ; a man with a steady old pointer will 

 obtain more shots at this time of day in an hour, than he 

 would by beating the coverts half the day with a 

 lot of noisy spaniels, which always do more harm than 

 good. 



In large preserves (which are out of the question with 

 the general shooter, appertaining exclusively to the 

 battue system) beaters are generally used with retrievers 

 only, to pick up the wounded game. In shooting as 

 weU as in hunting, noise is destructive of sport, and a lot 

 of yelping curs will drive game all over the country. 

 The clumber spaniel, which is silent, and beats within 

 a short distance of his master, is the only dog of the 

 spaniel kind which should be used in covert shooting ; 

 but in short underwood, setters or pointers, taught to 

 break their point as the game moves, are the best 

 auxiliaries to fiU the bag. After all, there is httle good 

 covert shooting until the leaves fall, and if pheasants 

 were spared a month longer, until fuU-grown, it would be 

 quite as well^ for they seldom attain their perfection of 



