WALKING UP 165 
are naturally not much help to the stock of birds. 
But in many parts of the Lowlands, as in the north 
of England, the fringe of the moor or hill ground, 
lying next to the arable land, affords good protection 
for nesting ; and the extensive cultivation of potatoes 
provides a class of cover which the birds are very fond 
of frequenting, and which is a welcome change from 
the eternal turnips, as birds can run very freely along 
them. In wheeling in a potato field, I would always 
recommend that the pivot flank should retrace its steps 
on the return beat overa portion of the same ground ; 
that is, when you are beating across the drills. You 
will often find that, owing to the protection of the deep 
drills, they have crossed back again on to the ground 
you have beaten. 
I would always try to force birds into potatoes 
rather than turnips, early in the season, while the 
cover in the former is pretty good, supposing that the 
management of the beat admits of it. Besides that 
they are pleasanter walking, birds show better, and are 
therefore more likely to be well killed, as well as more 
easily picked up than in turnips. There is always a 
better scent, and dead birds are more easily seen in a 
potato field. 
The question of finding the birds, in spite of the 
bare character of the modern stubble, is much more 
