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.
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