ODDS AND ENDS 281 
by a lessor of shooting that ‘I have reared a 
thousand pheasants,’ or ‘I will rear a thousand 
pheasants,’ is not at all the same as ‘I am rearing 
a thousand pheasants,’ which he might reasonably 
hold to mean, ‘I am ‘trying to rear a thousand 
pheasants.’ Therefore, I think, if a man says, ‘I 
have reared so many pheasants,’ or ‘I will rear so 
many,’ it may be assumed that he undertakes to 
supply. so many pheasants of not less than five 
weeks old, when they are fit to be turned into 
covert, and are practically safe from losses by 
disease. Given so many pheasants turned into 
covert at not less than five weeks old, how many 
is it reasonable to expect to kill? I should say 
three-quarters, unless the shoot has unusually 
detractive features, such as bad coverts near the 
boundary (beyond which are good coverts with 
every attraction), no stock of wild birds, and few 
rabbits, much vermin, and many foxes. It is not 
unusual in fair circumstances to account for the 
same number, or even more than the same number, 
of birds as were turned into covert. Generally 
speaking, an ordinary stock of wild birds may be 
relied upon to cancel ordinary losses among hand- 
reared birds; but it is impossible to lay down any 
hard and fast rule applicable to all sorts and con- 
ditions of shoots. The circumstances of no two 
shoots are precisely the same. To account for 
five hundred pheasants out of a thousand may be 
