battue

A form of hunting in which game is forced into the open by the beating of sticks on bushes, etc.

[page 203] In battue, whenever a hen rises, the signal "ware hen!" is called out by the sportsman or beater who is nearest it: meaning thereby "beware of the hen;" or, literally, "do not shoot the hen pheasant." In most places where game is very strictly preserved, and the rules of sporting firmly adhered to, a fine is imposed on any one who kills a hen pheasant in battue. […] [page 204] No dogs need be used in battue, but beaters only: and it should be remembered that pheasants always run to the end or side of the cover before taking flight, unless they are much pressed: consequently the best sport always comes at the extreme end of the wood.

In the southern territories of Tuva saiga antelopes were hunted successfully by the battue method, using horse as chasers, and log pens constructed before the hunt. Several dozen animals could be caught in one hunt by this method.

A hunt performed in this manner.

The battues have nothing whatever to do with the poaching, and once sufficiently grand battue would put an end to poaching altogether, by destroying all the game. The evil of which the chancellor should have spoken, is the excessive game preserving which allows of battues, or great massacres. The game is preserved till it swarms, and then it is slaughtered in swarms; but it is clearly not the massacre which provokes the poaching, but the temptation of the extraordinary abundance of game.

What, in your comprehension, is a battue?—As far as I understand a battue, it is where the woods are beaten; where the game is beaten out by men instead of dogs.