WOODLAND AND COVERT 135 



measure, to which, however, such stability 

 as our Game Laws now possess is largely 

 due — and a truer appreciation of the 

 mischief the rabbit is capable of, have 

 resulted in his being generally banned 

 from the grounds of our country homes, 

 and relegated to the comparative seclusion 

 of the warren or the waste. Since his 

 happy departure from the demesne — the 

 few that survive scarcely count when 

 compared with the hungry hordes of 

 other days — there remains no reason 

 why pheasant coverts should not be made 

 as picturesque as though they had been 

 planned and planted by a landscape 

 gardener. Indeed many of the conditions 

 which the ideal game-covert must fulfil 

 might easily be mistaken for an artist's 

 canons of beauty. 



But to make our coverts conform to 

 the standards of scientific forestry is 

 another matter altogether, and since the 

 broad backs — and very broad backs they 

 must be in this twentieth century — of 

 our landowners and country gentlemen 



