Old Hens
In the gamekeeper's eyes a hen pheasant becomes an old hen when she enters upon her second nesting season. But all cock pheasants are old birds when they have seen their first Christmas—only seven or eight months having passed over their glossy, green heads. With the New Year the youngest of the cocks is old in craft, guile and cunning, and all the keeper's skill is taxed to checkmate his endless ways of escape. A beat of the wood has no sooner started than all the birds depart to the point farthest from the beaters.
