COVERT-SHOOTING 279 



One small point— after every rise the head- 

 keeper comes direct to me ; this saves endless 

 worry; if you don't insist on it, you probably 

 want to alter something on the spur of the 

 moment for the next manoeuvre, try and find the 

 head-keeper, and eventually discern him half a 

 mile away looking for a running cock pheasant 

 with Captain Snooks. That is not his business ; 

 he should come for final instructions, and if there 

 is nothing to be changed or done, should go 

 where the game is being collected, count it, see 

 to its proper disposal, marshal his men and be 

 off. 



I must say that some of our new rises are 

 going to turn my hair grey, as the birds have to 

 be run a very long way, and over some queer 

 country. In one case they have to cross a coal 

 pit, a railway line, and a public road, but still 

 we think we shall get them where we want them. 

 If so, they should make real screamers, what I 

 have heard described as pheasants of the highest 

 killable quality, for they will be in something 

 very like the ideal place for the purpose, a narrow 

 valley with woods on either side — the guns stand- 

 ing down below, and the pheasants crossing from 

 height to height, making their shortest way home. 

 People with this lie of ground for their coverts 

 need never worry themselves over the elimination 

 of low pheasants. They have only to bush up 

 the rising point, run a wire round it if necessary, 

 and ipso Jacto the birds will come high. No 



