The careful gamekeeper will stop all the rabbit-holes round about the
place where he hopes that many pheasants will fall--perhaps for fifty
yards before and behind the stands of the sportsmen. Many a pheasant is
lost through going to ground in a rabbit-burrow, and there is seldom a
spade and a grub-axe at hand. The pheasant may be winged or otherwise
wounded, and if it cannot be dug out may die a lingering death. But
many a crafty old cock has revealed his hiding-place because, while
he has taken the precaution of drawing his body into a burrow, he has
forgotten his tail. Only one partridge, in our experience, has run to
ground after being winged.
* * * * *