A DAY WITH THE PARTRIDGE 189 



driven bird, in making a record *' bag/' in doing 

 something to create a stir among the men with 

 whom he associated at his host's table. And at 

 the end of the treatise, he, in mood hke Alexander 

 sighing for more worlds to conquer, complained 

 that partridges were not reared in sufficient 

 numbers on the estates over which he shot, 

 certain Uttle corners of the fields having been 

 left untenanted by birds that should have nested 

 there. In vain I looked through that treatise 

 for the least indication of the finer feelings of 

 humanity— I might as well have scanned the 

 pages of a gunmaker's catalogue. But the 

 picture in my mind as I closed the book was such 

 as no catalogue has ever suggested — a picture 

 of wounded bnds left for hours to struggle in 

 their misery around the butts, till the keepers 

 arrived on the scene to count and collect the 

 spoil. 



Luckily partridge shooting, here in remote 

 districts of the west, may still be made to yield 

 precisely the kind of sport that our fathers and 

 grandfathers enjoyed. We bring up our pointers 

 and setters in the way they should go, and 

 though the modern '' twelve '' has taken the 

 place of the mxuzzle-loader, and we do not 

 venture out into the fields wearing long-tailed 

 coats and " chimney-pot '' hats, incidents very 

 similar to those chronicled by our ancestors 



