THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON, 21 



hardly got into the first spinney before a couple of shots are heard and 

 a few seconds after a cock comes flitting towards me out of the last few 

 trees and as he passes I bowl him over ; a little fluff of feathers rise- 

 into the air, a soft thud on the grass and before we can pick him*up a 

 second bird is dropped almost on the top of the first and no sooner are my 

 cartridges home than a third follows. Then I have two long shots and; 

 misses and whilst reloading another passes over me before I can shoot. 

 Both B. and H. are in sight now and I prepare to move on to the next 

 gap but as J turn round a cock flies almost into me and, giving him a 

 little law, he too finds his way to grass. 



The second gap is a repetition of the first but here I put in six misses 

 to three kills as the birds do not fly so kindly for me. The last spinne} 

 is best of all, the birds seem determined to favour me and I get two 

 shots to every one by the two guns inside and when they come out I 

 am able to shew them 13 birds, of which 6 have been the result of the 

 last spinney, besides a wood-pigeon and a pheasant. The others be- 

 tween them have 15 cock, two rabbits and a brace of pheasants 

 so we have every reason to be jubilant. We have now 88 cock, 

 a bag never beaten here before but we are not yet finished. 

 Another long pine wood with bracken and hazel on the outskirts 

 only gives us a single bird but a hazel copse a few yards further on 

 gives us three more and but for my bad shooting should have 

 given us five. Then we pick up two odd birds, one from a holly 

 hedge near a pool and another from a bracken patch bordering some 

 turnips. By this time it is getting late and the birds are now in the 

 open feeding and H. gets one as it flaps overhead, making its way 

 from one feeding ground to another. Only a few minutes more of 

 day-light remain and we hurry for the last beat on our way home. 

 Here we find that there are still lots of birds but it is getting too 

 dark for good shooting and we miss more than we hit so; that only 

 three more birds are brought to book. We have now 98 birds and 

 our host insists on our trying to make up the hundred, but three or 

 four more misses in the gloaming at silent things, more like bats than 

 birds, and one bird lost in the dark are the only results, so we have 

 to be content with making the biggest bag of cock recorded in 

 my host's shooting experience. A tramp of two miles to the carts 

 in the fast gathering dark and then home after a long twenty miles 

 trudge and the best days small game shooting I ever hope to have. 



