14 REMIXISCEXCES OF A SPORTSMAN. 



I know a gentleman, an excellent sportsiiian, who re- 

 sides in a country of this description (Buckinghamshire), 

 and when birds are wild, he goes out with two shooting 

 parties, beating the high grounds on each side of the 

 valleys. When the birds cross the valley, they are gene- 

 rally marked down by the opposite party, and vice versa. 

 By this manoeuvring the birds become confused, scat- 

 tered, and lie well ; and the result has been, that five 

 and twenty brace have been bagged at the latter end of 

 October.* I should observe that the estate is strictly 

 preserved, and the valleys generally rather narrow. I 

 shot over this property about forty-five years ago, and at 

 that time there was probably not on the whole estate 

 more than thirty brace of bii'ds in the middle of Sep- 

 tember ; and as to pheasants you might as well expect 

 to find an elephant : hares also were very scarce. On 

 this same land, in November 1856, a party of six guns 

 shot in four or five hours 160 head of game, a fair pro- 

 portion of which were pheasants and bares. 



An agreement should be made between two sports- 

 men that when a single bird gets up they should take 

 it by turns to have the shot ; if this is neglected, both 

 may probably fire at the bird, each fancying that he has 

 killed it ; besides, if both hit the bird, it would be hardly 



* In tlie year 1859 it appears almost ridiculous to mention twenty-five 

 brace of birds being killed at the latter end of October; for the Duke of B. 

 informed me that a party of seven or eight guns, either in Cambridgeshii-e 

 or Norfolk killed in one day 2000 partridges ! I cannot class this under the 

 head of the old sport of partridge shooting. The coveys are all di'iven 

 into a few very extensive turnip fields ; the birds are then walked up, each 

 sportsman having a man behind him with a second gun, which is handed 

 to him as soon as he has discharged his two barrels. A good retriever 

 generally accompanies these slaughterers, and frequentlj' three or four 

 beaters. 



