I40 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



when you are called upon to beat a large wood in a 

 flat country, the birds being headed at the end of 

 every one of the monotonous squares into which it is 

 divided by narrow rides. This, however, one fre- 

 quently sees, and one is usually told that it must be 

 done this way so as to get the ground-game. I am 

 quite convinced that you cannot realise properly from 

 the rabbits and pheasants on the same day ; and even 

 if the destruction of the former be your principal 

 object, this is a bad as well as a dangerous way to 

 secure them. If the pheasants are your principal 

 object, show your pheasants well in three or four good 

 flushes, and let the rabbits take care of themselves. 

 Enough will be killed for amusement, and you can 

 make them the principal item of a later day, when you 

 can afford to walk the wood in line and allow the 

 pheasants to go where they please. 



This is the only way to kill ground-game in covert 

 safely and pleasantly ; but when each beat in the wood 

 is surrounded by guns ahead, guns at the side, and 

 guns with the beaters, very few safe shots are obtained 

 except at those which go back, no result proportionate 

 to the amount of rabbits is realised, while the only 

 shots at pheasants are low and unsatisfactory. 



In a wood so formed, and without any detached 

 covert to drive the birds forward into, let a definite 



