There was great excitement while we were in England concerning the pheasants.  Either the pheasants were preying on the mangel-wurzels or the mangel-wurzels were preying on the pheasants.  At any rate it had something to do with the Land Bill—­practically everything that happens in England has something to do with the Land Bill—­and Lloyd George was in a free state of perspiration over it; and the papers were full of it and altogether there was a great pother over it.

We saw pheasants by the score.  We saw them first from the windows of our railroad carriage—­big, beautiful birds nearly as large as barnyard fowls and as tame, feeding in the bare cabbage patches, regardless of the train chugging by not thirty yards away; and later we saw them again at still closer range as we strolled along the haw-and-holly-lined roads of the wonderful southern counties.  They would scuttle on ahead of us, weaving in and out of the hedgerows; and finally, when we insisted on it and flung pebbles at them to emphasize our desires, they would get up, with a great drumming of wings and a fine comet-like display of flowing tailfeathers on the part of the cock birds, and go booming away to what passes in Sussex and Kent for dense cover—­meaning by that thickets such as you may find in the upper end of Central Park.

They say King George is one of the best pheasant-shots in England.  He also collects postage stamps when not engaged in his regular regal duties, such as laying cornerstones for new workhouses and receiving presentation addresses from charity children.  I have never shot pheasants; but, having seen them in their free state as above described, and having in my youth collected postage stamps intermittently, I should say, speaking offhand, that of the two pursuits postage-stamp collecting is infinitely the more exciting and dangerous.

Through the closed season the keepers mind the pheasants, protecting them from poachers and feeding them on selected grain; but a day comes in October when the hunters go forth and take their stands at spaced intervals along a cleared aisle flanking the woods; then the beaters dive into the woods from the opposite side, and when the tame and trusting creatures come clustering about their feet expecting provender the beaters scare them up, by waving their umbrellas at them, I think, and the pheasants go rocketing into the air—­rocketing is the correct sporting term—­go rocketing into the air like a flock of Sunday supplements; and the gallant gunner downs them in great multitudes, always taking due care to avoid mussing his clothes.  For after all the main question is not “What did he kill?” but “How does he look?”