190 THE JONATHAN PAPERS 



spite of the swamp between, with its mud and 

 its rotten tree trunks and its grapevines and 

 its cat briers. 



Up on the ridge at last, we hunt close, find 

 him, get a shot, probably miss, and away we 

 go again. Some hunters, used to a country 

 where game is plenty, will not follow a bird if 

 they miss him on the first rise. They prefer 

 to keep on their predetermined course and 

 find another. But for me there is little pleas 

 ure in that kind of sport. What I enjoy most 

 is not shooting, but hunting. The chase is the 

 thing the chase after a particular bird once 

 flushed, the setting of my wits against his in 

 the endeavor to follow up his flight. We have 

 now and then flushed the same bird nine or 

 ten times before we got him and we have 

 not always got him then. For many and deep 

 are the crafty ways of the old partridge, and 

 we have not yet learned them all. That is 

 why I like partridge-hunting better than 

 quail or woodcock, though in these you get 

 far more and better shooting. Quail start in a 

 bunch, scatter, fly, and drop where you can 

 flush them again, one at a time; woodcock 

 fly in a zigzag, drop where they happen to, and 



