J 62 ORNITHOLOGICAL RzlMBLES. 



LETTER XV. 



" It is the rarity and difficulty of attainment of a bird that renders the 

 acquisition of it desirable to the true sportsman." 



Oakleigh Shooting Code. 



Shooting in Sussex compared with that in other Coun- 

 tries — The Black Grouse — Its Decline — The Phea- 

 sant — Ring-necked Pheasant — Probable Origin — 

 Pied Variety — Whether to be encouraged or not 

 — The Pheasant the Parmer's Friend — The Com- 

 mon Partridge — Red-legged Partridge — The Quail 

 — Partridge shooting on the Hills — View from 

 the Downs — Pheasant-shooting in the Weald — 

 Woodcock-shooting on the Downs — A Day's Wild 

 Sport. 



Norfolk may boast of her battues ; her woods 

 teeming with hares and pheasants ; her flat mono- 

 tonous turnip-fields, where a shooting party can 

 march backwards and forwards all day, and slaugh- 

 ter their hundreds of patridges without ever quit- 

 ting the same enclosure. Scotland and Wales have 

 their steep mountains and craggy glens, their 

 grouse and woodcocks ; and Ireland her trackless 

 bogs, wide-spreading loughs, and unrivalled snipe 



