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grass, and clover are all likely nesting-places, and in 

 wet seasons many broods are saved by the selection 

 of our old dry fence-banks by the parent birds. The 

 general character of the soil of our part of North- 

 amptonshire is too heavy for a first-rate Partridge 

 country, the essentials for which are a light soil, a 

 combination of arable and uncultivated land, and a 

 good water-supply, but in a good season we can show 

 very fair sport in the neighbourhood of Lilford in 

 September and October, though of course, as in other 

 places, our total bag depends, to a very great extent, 

 upon the amount of covert. In the old days of 

 muzzle-loaders and pointers we used to consider 

 from fifteen to twenty brace of Partridges a fair day's 

 bag for two guns, and often went home happy and 

 contented, after a good hard day's walking, with less 

 than half the latter number of birds, but now-a-days, 

 except in unusually good seasons for grass, we have 

 no work for pointers, as our corn-lands are laid bare 

 of any covert by the mowing-machines ; in thin 

 tiurnip-crops the birds are wilder than anywhere else, 

 and in good thick " root "-crops a quartering dog 

 disturbs more game than he helps to find ; besides 

 this the rapid loading of the present sporting guns 

 hardly admits of the perfection of dog-breaking, and 

 an unbroken dog of any kind is the greatest nuisance 

 with which a Partridge-shooter can be cursed. In 

 these circumstances we are forced to adopt the 

 " walking-up " system, and having thereby put our 

 birds into some kind of covert, we divide our forces, 

 and whilst a certain number of the guns walk with 

 the beaters, the remainder go forward, and concealing 

 themselves as best they may behind a fence in the 

 expected line of flight, deal with the birds as they 



