310 OUR FORESTS AND WOODLANDS 
with most unsatisfactory results; while there can 
be no real prevention of damage except by shoot- 
ing down the prolific little conies, as has been 
done in the case of hares in most parts of Eng- 
land, and by keeping them in due check after 
that. In comparison with the ravages of ground 
game, the damage done by pheasants in scratching 
up sowings in nurseries and in woods being regene- 
rated naturally, and that wrought by other game- 
birds in the forests, is insignificant. This class 
of shooting really need not interfere with good 
Forestry to any really appreciable extent unless the 
various necessary operations in the woods are, as 
is now usually the case, prohibited from being 
carried out at the seasonable, suitable, and only 
proper time for conducting them. Such greater 
freedom for the benefit of Forestry would of 
course disturb the pheasants, and make them wild 
and shy; but it would certainly tend to raise 
pheasant shooting once more from the low level 
of mere speed and marksmanship up to the higher 
position it once occupied as a branch of true sport. 
For such purposes copsewoods have special ad- 
vantages over highwoods or coppices; and this, 
along with other advantages previously indicated, 
