70 SHOOTING. 



sport; but then it is again found from experience tliat for one 

 windy day that they wOl lie like stones, they will prove ten days as 

 wild as hawks, particularly if there be showers of rain mth the 

 wind. In the latter case they generally take themselves to the 

 woods and to furze, and coleseed is said then to entice them. In 

 Ireland, partridges in a high wind uniformly make for the potato 

 fields. In weather of tliis kind the sportsman should always take 

 the windward side of his beat, otherwise he will run a chanceof 

 driving them off his grounds, and into the hands of other parties 

 who may be abroad. _ . 



Mid-day shooting claims our notice. As a common rule, in , 

 ordinarily fine weather, the birds leave their feeding localities 

 about ten o'clock in the month of September, and eleven in October, ; 

 but after this period their movements and habits j)ut on a less and I 

 less aspect of regularity, and timely calculation is set oftener at ' 

 defiance. The weather, constantly very variable in our climate, is 

 the chief cause of all this. "When we have a rapid succession of 

 rain, sleet, snow, wind, ^aid sunshine, we have a variety of disturb- 

 ing causes operating on both the sportsman and the birds ; there- 

 fore any umvcrsal rules must, in such cases, prove of little use. 

 The stubbles may be tried in mid-day, sometimes with advantage, 

 for the birds do not always leave these places for basking grounds. ] 

 These stubbles are the principal feeding localities, and as the day ■ 

 advances they are almost sure to be found at one time or another. ' 

 When birds of prey come in sight, coveys will often disperse, which j 

 is favourable to the sportsman. One bird will perhaps take shelter i 

 near a clod of earth, another will run behind a tuft of grass or 

 a low piece of copse, and a furze-bush_may shelter another. Some- 

 times the partridge is disposed to lie, in the latter end of the 

 season, in foul lands, such as are left in a rough state before the 

 agricultural operations of spring commence. ^ 



There is always a preponderance of cock birds among partridges, j 

 and this often tends to check the breed considerably. The hens \ 

 are so tormented by a number of males, that she di-ops one t%g in 

 one place, and another in a different spot._ It is said the best model 

 to destroy the superabundance of males is, durmg the first three j 

 weeks of the season, to net the covey, and destroy all the old cocks, i 

 leaving as many young hens, and even one less ; for it is certainly' 

 better that the old hen should look for the cock, than a number of 

 cocks run after one hen. It should be recollected, that where old 

 birds are left, they will at the paii'ing season drive off the young 

 ones and prevent their breeding ; for let any sportsman declare ii 

 ever one find a brace of partridges in the shooting season that have 

 not bred, and are termed by sportsmen a gelt pair, he has found a 

 covey near the same place where he found them; a circumstance 

 which can only be accounted for by the old birds driving the yomig 

 ones from the ground and preventing their breeding there. It is, 

 therefore, a wi'ong notion that some birds should^ not be killed 

 every year ; and those gentlemen who have manors wiU find, by 



