PHEASANTS THAT GO TO GROUND 29 



so enraged a sportsman that he ordered his loader to 

 bowl over the old sinner of a fox. Should a fox show 

 himself during the beating of a wood, it would be wise 

 to give him every chance to escape. What usually 

 happens is that the beaters force him forward with 

 sticks and curses, and the guns drive him back with 

 cries of ci Tally-ho ! " 



But the fox's appearance is disconcerting ; and 

 there is a touch of irony in the thought that a 

 crafty old fox, who in his time has slain more than 

 his share of pheasants, should yet be in at the death 

 of those that escaped him. 



The careful gamekeeper will stop all the rabbit-holes 

 round about the place where he hopes that many 



pheasants will fall perhaps for fifty yards 

 Pheasants before and behind the stands of the sports- 



men. Many a pheasant is lost through going 

 Ground to ground in a rabbit-burrow, and there is 



seldom a spade and a grub-axe at hand. 

 The pheasant may be winged or otherwise wounded, 

 and if it cannot be dug out may die a lingering death. 

 But many a crafty old cock has revealed his hiding- 

 place because, while he has taken the precaution of 

 drawing his body into a burrow, he has forgotten his 

 tail. Only one partridge, in our experience, has run 

 to ground after being winged. 



