152 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING . 
flying wide, will make a final tack, to bring them 
swooping diagonally over your head, their purple 
breasts and white-barred wings vivid in the glow of 
the evening sun. 
A field with woods all round is not so good, 
although more pigeons may come, because they 
come from all directions. Owing to the difficulty of 
keeping out of sight and seeing the birds in time, 
one does not get such satisfactory shooting as when 
one can watch the birds converging from a favourite 
direction, and can enjoy at least the chance to drop 
nine out of ten on corn-free ground. If there be no 
fence on that side of the feeding-field nearest the 
wood from which the pigeons come, you must erect 
a circular screen of hurdles or netting, well draped 
with local herbage and boughs——not withered, but 
fresh ; but often there will be a convenient hedge, 
in the middle of which, if low enough, you can get, 
or behind it, erecting a screen at your back. Should 
he hedge be so high as to prevent your seeing 
approaching birds, fix up a screen on the front side. 
The great thing is, while giving yourself every 
chance to see the pigeons in time to take them in 
front, not to allow them—before or after being shot 
at—to see more than is necessary of you. Pigeons 
are scared far more by the sight of a man than by 
the sound of a dozen shots. Generally, and par- 
ticularly when they are flying against a breeze, they 
have a favourite line by which they enter a field. 
