HUNTING PARTRIDGES. 95 



It is by such manoeuvres as these that the old sportsman 

 fills his game bag. The oftener a Partridge is flushed, the 

 less will be your chance of bagging it, unless accurately 

 marked down, because it becomes more and more fright- 

 ened, and takes longer flights than when first flushed, and 

 hides in more oat of the way places. An exception to this 

 rule is that of the Pheasant (^Bonesa umbellus), which, by 

 being flushed several times in succession, loses its courage, 

 and becomes less capable to elude its pursuers. To mark 

 Partridges down accurately it requires experience, and a 

 pi-acticed eye. Without possessing these qualities-you will 

 be invariably mistaken. A good rule for marking a Part- 

 ridge down is to watch the bird very narrowly in its line of 

 flight, and when you lose sight of it in the distance, or in 

 the covert, keep your eye on its line of flight, and far in 

 the advance. Very often when coming down it will show 

 itself by a flap of its wings, or in some other way long- 

 after you have lost sight of it. But as a rule never believe 

 a Partridge to be down, no matter how low you may have 

 seen it flying over a particular point or knoll, or how low 

 3^ou may have seen it sail, and scud close to the ground, 

 for if you have seen a flap of its wings while scudding low 

 at a particular spot, be not sure it is down, but when you 

 see it hit the cover it is down then, you can be sure. When 

 the weather is fair and dry hunt until about ten or eleven 

 o'clock in the morning the wheat stubbles and corn fields. 

 From ten or eleven o'clock in the morning, until about 

 three o'clock in the afternoon, hunt out the thickets, and 

 clumps of bushes and wood, and look well to the edges of 

 clearings, swamps, and brakes, and to the bushy sides of 

 fence rows, ditches, and creek banks. In the afternoon, 

 from about three o'clock until sunset, should the weather 

 prove fair and dry, return again to the wheat stubbles and 

 corn fields until dark ; it will be here you will make your 

 best bag. On wet and foggy days, instead of hunting 

 where the ground lies the lowest in marshes and in 

 swamps, and in thick cover, tiring yourself and dog, go in 

 thin open cover, where the ground lies the highest, and 



