PARTRIDGES WILD FOWL GROUSE. 161 



sport unsatisfactory ; and in fact no one, I believe, who can 

 number more than sixteen summers ever got up at three 

 o'clock to shoot partridges without repenting his undue 

 activity before mid-day. 



In this country very little of the corn is cut at the com- 

 mencement of September, and I never attempt to shoot more 

 partridges than I may happen to want for the larder. As 

 long as the fields are covered with standing corn, the only 

 way is to hunt quietly round the hedgerows, and banks 

 exposed to the sun, or in dry soiled turnip fields, during the 

 middle of the day, when the birds come to bask and scratch. 

 Both partridges and hares stick close to standing com as 

 long as an acre of it remains. 



In this country, however, the wild fowl and other birds 

 which frequent the shores and rocks always afford me as 

 amusing sport as the best partridge- shooting ; and at this 

 season there is always a constant and endless variety of 

 migratory birds collecting previous to their departure. 



There is one very numerous class of birds, the sandpipers 

 and others of the same kind, which are very little known. 

 Even the best and most quoted authors of works on natural 

 history are constantly in error with regard to the names and 

 classification of these birds, and although I do not pretend 

 to be acquainted with all, or nearly all, the varieties, I know 

 enough of them to perceive that the numerous changes of 

 plumage which each species goes through, according to their 

 age, sex, and the season of the year, have completely misled 

 most naturalists. Indeed to know these birds perfectly 

 requires much greater attention and more minute examina- 

 tion than has yet been expended upon them. Such also is 

 the case as regards sea-gulls, and some kinds of hawks, 

 though with these the difficulty is not so great. 



I always find that the grouse are wilder in September 

 than in any other month. They are well scared and driven 

 about by the August shooting, and are not yet Lamed down 

 by the autumnal frosts and cold. 



In this part of Scotland we have much wild and stormy 

 weather in September ; and many an English sportsman 

 towards the end of the month, when located in some small 

 shooting-lodge, in the wild and distant glens of the inland 

 mountains, begins to think of turning his way southwards. 

 The incessant rain driving pitilessly down the glen where his 

 confined and badly-built cottage is placed, rivers turned into 



