426 BIEDS OF NORFOLK. 



offer a fatal shelter to the birds, and a hot fusillade 

 and a rapid addition to the bag repay the toil of the 

 sportsman. Later in the season, however, when the 

 birds become *^ packed," as it is termed (large coveys 

 consorting together for mutual safety), the "driving" 

 system, before referred to, is now commonly adopted 

 for both English and French birds. This is certainly 

 the perfection of sport for those possessed of the 

 necessary quickness and skill ; but to the uninitiated, at 

 least, it is nervous work, standing under shelter of a 

 fence or a lift of hurdles drawn with gorse, and peering 

 anxiously through the prickly screen to watch the 

 motions of the driving party. Coveys and single birds 

 are marked down at different points, and presently the 

 beaters, spreading out in line, are coming on. Now is 

 the time ! never mind that noisy heart of yours, that 

 will thump, thump, like an eight-day clock. Keep your 

 eyes open, grip your gun-stock tight. Whish ! Here they 

 come. Bang ! bang ! And the birds, killed high in the 

 air, fall dead some thirty yards behind the gunners. An 

 old hand, perhaps, bags his brace, though coming at 

 heaven knows what an hour ; for the pace of a partridge 

 thus flushed at a distance is something extraordinary. 

 Ask the novice, for instance, after such a flight, if 

 he got a shot that time ? " Shot ! What at ? I heard 

 you fire, and something came with a whish ! past my 

 head, but it was gone before I turned round." Yet 

 this style of shooting, which to sportsmen of the old 

 school would have appeared an impossibility, is now 

 accomplished with such certainty by the crack shots 

 of the day, that at Beechamwell, near Swaffham, 

 towards the close of the past season, a party of 

 guns killed four hundred partridges, in one day, by 

 ^^ driving" only. 



It is by no means an unusual circumstance for 

 partridges when flushed in the vicinity of the telegraph 



