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serious—for Gloucestershire partridge hawking needs the best 
of dogs, and best of work, to killi—my trusty friend, my field 
glass, was put to work, also with no result for some time. At 
last it shewed me (fields are large at Coates, and near the 
College Farm) a white speck in the deep turnips, which a bright 
idea struck me resembled ‘“‘Don’s” nose! A nearer view 
thereof, confirmed the fact, and “Tigress” was rapidly divested 
of her swivel, leash, and hood, and set going. She, too, 
mounted well in the breeze, and we retraced our steps, after 
half an hour’s absence, to the very place from which our first 
flight had started. There stood the pointer, just as before, and 
as he had all along been standing, though we had heeded him 
not, and at the self-same birds. Of course the birds that rose 
for “Blanche” had not been his birds, for directly this hawk 
came well up and over (she cared little for me or anyone, and 
all we got out of her had to be extorted) right in front of old 
“Don,” we raised another fine covey, one of which speedily fell 
- into “Tigress’s” hands, and eventually into ours, for we did 
not again find a hawk willing to let it go, as I never had before, 
and never shall have again. 
I will but add one more incident in the too short life 
of this charming hawk “Blanche,” who killed my first wild 
grouse, before my delighted eyes, on the Bala mountains, and 
_ I will bring this long record of nothings to an end. 
Suppose the same two of us, master and man, and near the 
_ same place, on the same errand, on a lovely serene late autumn 
day, just outside a huge cover near Sapperton and Pimbury 
Park. Kept too long on the wing for half a mile, in hope of 
_ the birds “ Fan” could not, or would not find, and rendered 
desperate by a final false point, off set “ Blanche” over the 
wooded valley in pursuit apparently of some wood pigeon or 
magpie unseen. The country, unlike the Wilts Downs, is 
hopeless in this case. No view to be had, nor any means of 
getting one. ‘We have done it now.” “No use seeking 
her; I shall sit down and eat my lunch.” And so I did, with 
my back to a gate, and a lovely field of white clover in front, 
full of its sweet perfume in the pleasant air, I enjoyed 
