AUTUMN 



To find out how the wild birds have fared is always 

 difficult : one never sees them properly until the 

 days of shooting are at hand and not 

 The always then, when a sight of them rather 



V ^ 1Ct under than over forty yards distant might be 



01 t>ilG 



Season welcome. We may pass by a wood outside 

 which many pheasants may be feeding, as a 

 flock of fowls, or sitting lazily about on the fences, 

 some perhaps indolently stretching a wing in the 

 pleasant wallow of a dust-bath ; but this does not 

 prove that pheasants have done well merely that 

 there are so many pheasants at a certain place ; it 

 does not even prove that they will be there the 

 next day. Such a spot may be a place where large 

 numbers of pheasants are reared. One may count 

 a hundred birds in the corner of a field perhaps 

 there should have been a hundred and fifty. Or 

 perhaps the hundred to be seen means better luck 

 than usual in the breeding season in that particular 

 part. A man who sees pheasants where he does not 

 know how many were bred may think a dozen a 

 large number, or he may view with scorn the sight of 

 several hundreds if he has been accustomed to see 



185 



