come from the frozen meres
to their old home; and if one can keep out of sight (and this is no easy
matter in December) many a shot can be obtained in the withybeds by the
river. Teal and widgeon may be shot occasionally in the same manner.

Sometimes, when you are upon the hills with Tom Peregrine, the keeper,
trying to pick up a brace or two of partridges for the house, he will
suddenly say, "_Quad down!_" then, throwing himself on to his hands and
knees in breathless anxiety, he will begin whistling for "all he knows."
You imitate him to the best of your ability, and soon, if you are lucky,
an enormous flock of golden plover flash over you. Four barrels are
fired almost instantaneously, and the deadly "twelve-bore" of your
companion is seldom fired in vain.

Green plover, or lapwings, are numerous enough on the Cotswolds. They
are wonderfully difficult to circumvent, nevertheless. You crouch down
under a wall, while your men go ever so far round to drive them to you;
but it is the rarest thing in the world to bag one. Their eggs are very
difficult to find in the breeding season. It is the male bird that, like
a terrified and anxious mother, flies round and round you with piteous
cries; the female bird, when disturbed, flies straight away.

Pigeon-shooting with decoys is a very favourite amusement among the
Cotswold farmers. They manage to bag an enormous quantity in a hard
winter, sometimes getting over a hundred in a day. Wood-pigeons come in
thousands to the stubble fields when the beech nuts have come to an end.
Large flocks of them annually migrate to England from Northern Europe.
Crouching in a hedge or under a wall, you may enjoy as pretty a day's
sport as ever fell to the lot of mortal man. A few dead birds are placed
on the stubble to attract the flocks, and a grand variety of flying
shots may be obtained as the wood-pigeons fly over. The year 1897 was
remarkable for this shooting. Between November 20th and 30th two of our
farmers killed close on a thousand of these birds. Some of them
doubtless were potted on the ground. Tom Peregrine remarked that "he
never saw such a sight of dead pigeons. The cheese-room up at the farm
was full of them." The vast flocks that blacken the skies for a few
short weeks in November disappear as suddenly as they come. After
November they are no more seen.

There would be many more partridges were it not for the rooks and
magpies. Hedges wherein the birds can hide their nests