PARTRIDGES, PHEASANTS, HARES, ETC. 8i 



himself will serve to make him rise to the occasion, and he 

 will also be certain that all birds that are his will be strictly 

 left for him to deal with. When driving partridges at the 

 end of the season, the author on several occasions has been 

 asked to shoot cocks only. At the first moment it seemed 

 an impossibility, but we soon found, if all thought of making 

 a "double" was discarded, that then the matter was by no 

 means a difficult one to accomplish, as with a good light the 

 horse-shoe of the cock shows out very clearly ; and we know 

 several friends who, if asked to do this, will kill a cock bird 

 out of a covey almost every time, though, of course, at 

 times they will be deceived by an old hen, who will have 

 almost as good a horse-shoe as a young cock. Five or six 

 guns working in this style for the last few days of the season 

 will be doing no slight service to that shooting ground, for 

 cock birds are always too numerous, and the old ones, asserting 

 their territorial claims tyrannically, drive younger cocks away, 

 and do all they can to hinder them nesting anywhere near. 



In the home counties birds are often extra plentiful in dry 

 seasons which produce no cover to shoot them in ; in such 

 circumstances it is a good plan to walk over the manor just 

 before harvest commences in search of a corn-field or two that 

 are failures, and the crop of which would not pay the expenses 

 of cutting, and having found them then enter at once into 

 negotiation with the farmer and buy them as they stand ; and 

 this accomplished, so leave them till the end of September. It 

 will not be money thrown away, as cover will be provided to 

 drive birds into, and we have often seen two fields of this sort 

 add fully two hundred brace to the bag during the first three 

 weeks of September ; then as soon as the cream of the bird- 

 shooting is over, the keepers can cut what remains of the crop, 

 which can be carted to the covers to be used for pheasant food ; 

 while should such fields be near well-stocked covers, so long 

 as they are left standing they will greatly help in keeping the 

 longtails from straying. 



M 



