16 EEMINISCEXCES OF A SPORTSMA:^. 



a tolerably good gitess where they are to be found, more 

 especially if there should be any turnips, cole-seed, or 

 rough furzy ground, in that direction. A good marker 

 contributes greatly to the success of the day's sport, and 

 I have known several ladies, who, after some practice, 

 performed this as well as a gamekeeper.* If two or 

 three persons are shooting together, and a covey disperse 

 on rising, each should keep his eye steadily on the birds 

 which fly to the right or left, or in a straight line, and, 

 if the marking down is well performed, some good 

 shooting may be anticipated, for, as I before said, when 

 birds are dispersed, they lie generally close. 



When a covey has sometimes risen forty or fifty yards 

 off, I have fired both barrels at them, in the hope of 

 making them disperse ; this sometimes succeeds. 



In Norfolk and Suffolk, where -partridges are very 

 numerous, they frequently begin to pack early in No- 

 vember, and in the neighbourhood of Swafifham I have 

 seen forty or fifty birds rise together in a field; you 

 have then no chance of getting within shot of them, as 

 they are wild as hawks. Should you be much in want 

 of birds, and able to guess where to find them, load each 

 barrel with Eley's cartridges No. 4 shot, and conceal 

 yourself under the hedge of the field, in which you 

 expe(»t to find the pack ; then let a person enter the 

 ground, walking in the direction where you lie con- 

 cealed ; you will then stand a fair chance, as they cross 



* My -wife was very aufait in marking down birds. As several hundred 

 acres of the parish in which we lived were unenclosed, she frequently 

 accompanied me shooting, on a New Forest pony, and when the birds 

 were on the wing and I had shot, she rode in the direction of their 

 flight, and rarely failed to mark them do-mi accurately. I frequently 

 passed her the compliment of declaring she was as useful in the field as 

 a pointer. 



