36 
HIGH PHEASANTS : 
this result, five times out of six, is caused by his dweUing on 
the trigger. 
There are two reasons, more or less independent of the 
shooter, why very high pheasants are difficult to kill. One 
reason is, that they usually, when shot at, have only the sky 
as a background, and are not near the tops of trees, which 
might otherwise help to indicate their position, height and 
pace. 
The other reason is, that when several come together, their 
pace often varies, the strongest birds flying fastest. If a 
shooter, therefore, has been killing the slower birds with a 
well-judged forward allowance, the faster ones — though they 
may not appear to him to be flying at a speed above the 
others — may easily be missed through shooting behind them. 
In covert-shooting, a very high pheasant is nearly always 
the result of the shooter standing far below the bird, as, for 
instance, in a valley between hills. When passing from the 
crest or side of one hill to another, a pheasant seldom takes an 
upward flight, though it often seems to do so ; it merely pursues 
a horizontal course, though sometimes a slightly downwards 
one — the most difficult of all shots if the wings of the bird are 
rigid — to the place where it intends to alight ; and it just 
depends on the depth of the valley in which the shooter is 
standing, or the height of the ground from which the bird 
rises, whether it is in or out of range. ^ 
^ Among many other places where I have seen pheasants fly very high off 
wooded hill-sides, I may mention as examples Bishopswood, Benacre, Berkeley, 
Gwemyfed, The Hendre, Harpton, Londesborough, Margam, Mulgrave, Penrice, 
Penrhyn, Powis, Rokeby, Roundway, Stoke-Edith, Walcot, and Wallop. I 
consider the birds that fly across the deep valleys at Bishopswood, Mulgrave, 
and Walcot are consistently the highest pheasants throughout a day's shooting 
