i8o SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



ready to run as to walk ; you must have knowledge 

 or instinct to guide you to likely ground ; and last, 

 but not least, you must possess a good dog or couple 

 of dogs, and know how to handle them. If you are 

 familiar with your ground, and it is broken up by 

 irregularly shaped copses and plantations, you may 

 do much, if you can think of a narrow neck where 

 two coverts meet, or where a point of wood or under- 

 growth juts out into the open, by sending on one or 

 two of your limited band to act as stops — to station 

 there, and to keep the old cocks from running in or 

 out. But you must do this ere ever you have set foot 

 or fired a shot in the covert or thicket you are going to 

 beat ; and the man or boy you send forward must be 

 sound of wind and limb, able to run quickly, one who 

 will not shirk making a good wide circuit to get to 

 his post, and who, when there, will ' cannily ' check 

 the forward running of the birds. And when you 

 get close to the end, and come right upon the two or 

 three old cock pheasants whom- it has cost you much 

 trouble and hard walking to out-manoeuvre, he must 

 have the sense to become suddenly non-existent, to 

 lie down or place the thick trunk of a tree between 

 your barrels and himself, or he may baulk you after 

 all your toil and trouble by being in the direct line of 

 your solitary shot. 



