THE CHEER. 171 



straight out, and you arrest his career (if you are sharp enough) 

 then and there. 



Then comes the work below ; the dogs are called close to heel, 

 and following the shouted directions of the markers, you move 

 about here and there, now finding a dead bird, now having a 

 wounded one brought you by a dog, and now getting nearly 

 knocked down by one w T hose tail absolutely brushes your face 

 as it rises under your feet from the centre of a small patch of 

 cover, which, on the persistent outcries of the markers, you 

 have been vainly hunting through, backwards and forwards, for 

 the ten previous minutes. 



But you do not account for all, unless you are a better shot 

 than I ever yet saw, though in these days of breech-loaders far 

 fewer ought to escape — some wounded birds, and many of the 

 unwounded will have given leg bail, and the distances they will 

 then go is surprising. I have, quite by accident, recovered by 

 a dog pouncing on it a Cheer, with pinion broken, the blood 

 still fresh on it, fully three miles down a valley at the upper part 

 of which two or three hours previously I had had a beat. 



The sport is very exhilarating, but you are generally lower 

 down than in Koklass shooting ; you are more closed in, the air 

 is not so fresh and bright, there are no superb wide-reaching 

 views, changing as you move ; a glimpse of the snows is rarely 

 to be caught ; you have no magnificent forest about you, and 

 when brought to bag, your bird is very poor eating compared 

 with Koklass or Woodcock. 



The force with which Cheer descend is almost incredible. 

 Other Pheasants in descending keep the wings a little open ; 

 these birds pass one at such a fearful pace that it is impossible 

 to be certain, but it always appeared to me that Cheer quite 

 closed their wings, and I attribute their power to do this to 

 their enormous tails sufficing to guide them. When within 

 a hundred feet, I speak by guess, of the level at which 

 they intend to light, suddenly out go the wings, the tail is 

 spread to its fullest expanse, the bird looks double the size 

 it did a second before, and sweeps off in graceful curves right 

 or left, shortly dropping suddenly, almost as if shot, into some 

 patch of low cover. If no shots have been fired, you may 

 walk straight down, and ten to one find him exactly where you 

 marked him. 



At times you get them on the hill sides, where the trees 

 are thin, but there is no great sport to be got there ; the whole 

 covey is scattered over an endless distance, you must make 

 a line, the birds will get up in front of any one but the gunner, 

 and run down hill in a most provoking manner ; if you get 

 two brace in such a situation after five or six hours' fagging you 

 may be well pleased, unless the covey happens to have an 

 antipathy to dogs, as they occasionally seem to have in out- 

 of-the-way places. Then almost every bird that is found by 



