PHEASANT SHOOTING 
the following plan. A length of small -meshed wire netting should be run 
across the wood, about a hundred yards from the end, and inclined out- 
wards at an acute angle, so that if three -feet netting is used, the topmost 
edge is about two feet six inches from the ground. The pheasants jump 
upon it, and finding their footing insecure at once take wing, and thus 
come forward in constant succession. The netting must be strong, and 
secured with stout posts, or the whole may collapse with the weight of 
the birds. If the country is very flat, pheasants may be made to rise to a 
good height by placing a few stops at the end of the covert, about twenty 
yards from it, and putting the guns a hundred yards or more behind them. 
The birds will then rise to clear the first rank, and keep on rising when 
they see the second row behind it. An ingenious plan for outwitting 
pheasants the writer used frequently to see carried out successfully in 
a hill-country, is as follows: Long coverts clothed some hill-sides for 
miles, occupying the steep ground between where it was possible to 
cultivate the fields, and the top, which was flat table -land, under cultiva- 
tion. There was a fair sprinkling of wild pheasants, and the mode of coping 
with them was to send forward half the beaters about a quarter or half 
a mile ahead, with orders to station themselves across the wood and 
to keep on tapping loudly. The other beaters, with the guns interspersed 
between them (except that there was one outside the wood at the top and 
bottom), then advanced and beat about half the distance, the pheasants 
scuttling on ahead — excepting a few which occasionally rose. Then as 
open a spot as could be found was selected, and the guns remained there, 
while the beaters who were with them advanced about fifty yards further 
into the wood, remaining there, and tapping gently. A signal was then 
given by one of the guns on the outside, when the stops who had been 
sent on became beaters in turn, and beat back towards the guns. The 
pheasants thus found themselves being driven back between two lines, 
and, true to their nature to return home, rose into the air when they came 
near the new set of stops, and flying over the trees, gave excellent shots 
to the guns stationed behind. After this beat was finished the party pro- 
ceeded outside the wood to where the first stops had been placed, and the 
whole process was again gone through, over the next portion of the wood. 
In this way an average of about eighty pheasants a day was obtained, 
besides a good many rabbits and some woodcocks. 
It is very annoying when a fox is present in a wood which is being beaten, 
where there are a number of pheasants, for as it moves about it scatters 
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