SPORT ANCIENT AND MODERN 



gunners of the old days. The following account 

 of this wager is taken from Bell's Life : l 



The shooting match for s a s '^e between 

 W. S. Crawford, esquire, of Church Langton, and 

 G. Osbaldeston, esquire, of Melton, came off on Tues- 

 day and Thursday last, over the preserves of Lord Scar- 

 brough ofRufford Hall, Notts, Sir Richard Sutton 

 acting as referee. The weather was rough and 

 stormy, which was much in favour of W. S. Crawford, 

 esquire, who won by two brace of birds. 



Details of a sporting event of a similar 

 character decided between the same pair are 

 supplied in the Badminton Library volume on 

 Shooting (Field and Covert), 2 where the follow- 

 ing account is given : 



A somewhat celebrated match at partridges took 

 place in 1850 between Mr. Crawford and Mr. Os- 

 baldeston, the former allowing the latter a start of 

 20 brace, being equivalent to one brace for every 

 year that he exceeded him in age. On the first day 

 each sportsman killed 80 brace, on the second day 

 Mr. Crawford killed loz brace and Mr. Osbaldeston 

 30 brace. The writer (Lord Walsingham) has 

 received the above particulars from Mr. Savile's 

 keeper, Samuel Herod, who walked with the shooters. 



" The Squire," as all the world knows, was 

 always keen on a wager, and often backed him- 

 self to do great things with the gun. On one 

 occasion, according to an account that is quoted 

 in Mr. E. V. Lucas's Hambledon Men, 3 Squire 

 Osbaldeston killed 98 out of 100 pheasants, and 

 backing himself to kill 80 brace of partridges in 

 a day he killed 97 brace, while the 5^ brace 

 which were picked up afterwards brought the 

 total to over 100 brace. A remarkable feat, 

 surely, in the days of muzzle-loaders ! 



During recent years there has been no great 

 amount of shooting on the Worksop estate, 

 belonging to the Duke of Newcastle. The 

 home shoots, which comprise the whole of 

 Clumber Park, together with several farms and 

 coverts lying adjacent thereto, are in hand, 

 and the land is well suited for partridges and 

 pheasants. During the last two or three years, 

 however, there has been practically no rearing by 

 hand. Upon this estate in the parish of 

 Haushton is situated the old and famous Haugh- 

 ton Duck Decoy. The decoy yields a fair 

 number of wild duck and is maintained in 

 good working order by his grace. All the rest 

 of the shooting on the estate is let to farm and 

 other tenants, the holder of the largest shoot 

 being Mr. W. Hickson of Clumber Cottage, 

 Worksop, who rears systematically. 



Lady Chermside's Newstead Abbey estate 

 comprises 18,000 acres, of which the greater 



'Sunday, 13 Oct. 1850. 

 *Op. cit. 178, 179. 



3 A new edition of John Nyren's Young Cricketer's 

 Tutor. 



portion is woodland. There are in all some 

 12,000 acres of pheasant coverts, but the yield 

 is not great, the average yearly bag being about 

 350 brace. Partridge grounds extend to 6,000 

 acres and yield 500 brace of birds in a season. 

 Pheasants are not now reared by hand, Sir 

 Herbert Chermside, who does all the shooting 

 on the estate, having decided to go in for wild 

 birds only. Partridges are both driven and 

 walked up, and the ground is considered some 

 of the best in the county. Woodcock are fairly 

 frequent, twelve couple or more being usually 

 bagged in a season. The Ground Game Act 

 has brought about a great scarcity of hares, and 

 rabbits are kept within rigorous limits. A warren 

 of some 59 acres is, however, maintained, and 

 about 2,000 rabbits are taken from it every season. 

 These are crossed periodically with the silver grey. 

 Mr. W. H. Mason of Morton Hall, East 

 Retford, who has about 2,400 acres of partridge 

 ground and 105 acres of covert, besides rough 

 land, in Nottinghamshire, has supplied us with a 

 very interesting account of his shooting, and part 

 of his letter must be given verbatim. He says : 



Though I own 3,000 acres of shooting in this county, 

 it is scattered about in eight parishes. I have between 

 600 and 720 acres in this parish (East Retford), but 

 in a long narrow strip ; nearly the whole of South 

 Wheatley parish (over 600 acres) ;over 1,000 acres in 

 the joint parishes of North Leverton with Habbles- 

 thorpe ; and also a farm in South Leverton, Headon 

 cum Upton, Clarborough, and land in Hayton and 

 Cottam. We have generally reared some pheasants 

 here, but our record is no more than 120 birds in one 

 day. There are 96 acres of covert here, but I give 

 14 acres of this to a neighbour. Our best day's 

 partridge shooting (driving) is 46 brace, with six guns. 

 Perhaps it may be interesting to state that red-legged 

 partridges were quite unknown in this county when I 

 was a boy (I was born in 1 846), but now there are 

 any quantity. I cannot say when they first appeared ; 

 not earlier, I imagine, than 1865, though an odd pair 

 may have been seen here and there before that date. 

 Partridges are both walked up and driven, but the 

 latter method is generally adopted wherever they are 

 really plentiful and there is enough ground. I have 

 in this house a couple of stuffed hares one pure 

 white all over and the other a very pale grey-brown. 

 Both of these were killed here, and both, I believe, by 

 my grandfather. The white one was killed by him, 

 my father told me, and I think before my father 

 could remember ; so it must be getting on for a 

 hundred years ago. The Ground Game Act has 

 had little effect. There are as many hares now as 

 there were before the Act. If there are more rabbits 

 it is the fault of the tenant farmers, who sell their 

 right to kill them to a professional rabbit-killer, who 

 takes the cream off, but does not kill down in the 

 thorough way the keepers used to do. This applies, 

 of course, to cultivated land only, not to woodland. 

 Gangs of poachers, ten to twenty and even more in 

 number, net the rabbits systematically wherever there 

 are enough to make it worth while. Woodcock are 

 not very common, and breed here less frequently, I 

 think, than they did in years gone by. 



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