PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 141 



the benefit of young sportsmen. The rising genera- 

 tion of shooters might otherwise be left, as I was for 

 many years, to find out all these little matters, which 

 not one man in a thousand (admitting that he knows 

 them) likes to impart to another ; and yet which are 

 so necessary to be known, before even the best shots 

 among them would be able to cope with a crafty old 

 sportsman. 



PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 



MOST young sportsmen, and many old ones, fancy 

 that nothing great can be done on the first day, with- 

 out they go out as soon as they can see to distinguish 

 a bird from a dog. This may possibly be necessary 

 for those who start from a town, where two or three 

 unfortunate coveys are to be contended for by half 

 the lawyers, doctors, schoolmasters, sporting parsons, 

 and tradesmen in the place ; but under other circum- 

 stances, this is the very worst method that can be 

 adopted. 



In the first place, the birds being at this time on 

 the feed, will not always lie well. By your spring- 

 ing them from the run, the covey are pretty sure to 

 take wing altogether ; and being once disturbed in this 

 state, it becomes, afterwards, much more difficult to 

 disperse them, than if they had been left quiet till 

 the dew had dried on the stubble. Secondly, you 

 throw off with long shots instead of fair ones ; which, 

 to say the least of it, is not a favourable beginning 



