HO IV TO SHOW PHEASANTS 137 



adjoining the covert, or even a turnip field where the 

 crop affords good covert. Everyone must have noticed 

 how high pheasants will rocket out of the latter when 

 men are walking across it for partridges, or when it is 

 being driven in by the beaters, and what splendid shots 

 the pheasants would give to anyone standing under 

 the wood they make for. Well, here is your oppor- 

 tunity ; have no fear, but after first placing a few 

 stops on the far side of the heath or turnips, and, as 

 before, having well driven in all outlying hedgerows — 

 a most important matter for securing the cocks, espe- 

 cially the old ones — boldly drive all your pheasants in 

 the same manner as before, without heading them, out 

 into the turnips. Place your guns in a line, with their 

 backs to the wood, and about twenty yards from it, 

 One or two, if the line be too long for the width of 

 the field or heath, can back up the others as before, 

 standing a little way in the wood. Now, let the whole 

 line of beaters advance from the wood across the 

 turnips for, say, seventy or eighty yards. Let the main 

 body then fall out right and left, and go round to meet 

 on the far side of the field or heath to bring it towards 

 you, but leaving a proportion of their number, say, one 

 man to every fifteen yards, to stand in line, as stops, 

 right across the field. 



The main body, having met on the far side, must 



