196 SHOOTING THE PHEASANT 



such another ! If so, take those coverts which they 

 will draw or stray to rather than the one they stray 

 from to put your stock into. Improve or add to 

 the coverts, instead of obstinately trying year by year 

 to prevent the birds following their own superior 

 instinct as to what suits them. Exceptions must 

 occur, of course, as where the wood that attracts them 

 is situated on your boundary, or is of such a nature that 

 you cannot get a good day's shooting out of it ; but 

 in these cases you must deal with the difficulties in 

 other ways. If in a certain covert you always find 

 more birds than you expect, make it at once into 

 one of your principal days ; and if, on the other 

 hand, your home wood or any other which has for 

 years been traditionally one of the ' big days,' always 

 results in disappointment, give it up entirely as a 

 stronghold of pheasants, and shoot others of less 

 apparent importance. The habits of the birds will 

 prove a very safe guide. 



For your pheasantries or pens more or less open 

 ground — that is, with plenty of light — must be selected. 

 It is also of paramount importance that they should be 

 on well-drained soil, and on a slope facing south or 

 south-west. Without these essential conditions it is 

 absolutely impossible to succeed, while they apply 

 equally to the ground on which the young birds are 



