V 



On the Plains 



THE first of August is the date on which the 

 shooting season proper that is to say, 

 partridge, pheasant, and hare shooting 

 legally opens in Bohemia. As a matter of fact, it 

 is generally the middle of the month before the 

 young partridges are big enough and sufficiently 

 strong on the wing to shoot ; and the pheasants 

 and hares are invariably left until the autumn, 

 when the leaves have fallen from the trees and the 

 first frost has come to remind us that summer is 

 a thing of the past and winter well on its way. 



The " little brown bird " of the Bohemian plains 

 is, to the ordinary observer, identically the same 

 as the English partridge. Ornithologists detect a 

 trifling variation in the plumage ; but it is so slight 

 as to be imperceptible to any one but an expert. 



Partridge driving, according to our system, is 

 practically unknown. In many places low covers 

 (known as remisen) are planted as shelters in the 

 midst of the fields, and into these the birds from the 



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