8 . LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTEKS 



pockets them, is oftener than not the ' pothunter,' 

 who seeks that he may devour, and pounces on every 

 bird he can find outside some neighbouring covert of 

 which he has not the entree ! Few owners of preserves 

 would hustle and bustle their pheasants about with 

 pointers or spaniels for the poor and solitary amuse- 

 ment of killing the birds as they rose at their feet ; 

 they would rather drive them back to the woods they 

 belong to, with a view to their eventually showing 

 sport of a more worthy description ! 



Imagine, again, the uselessness of setting forth 

 with a brace of pointers on the average English 

 estate to shoot PARTRIDGES. Call to mind the bare 

 level fields, the thin hedges, the short grass, the close- 

 shaven stubbles, the mathematically drilled and care- 

 fully cleaned turnip fields. 



When we can work dogs, it is possible for the first 

 week of September, to kill birds with their assistance, 

 if good cover abounds. But look at our late harvests, 

 the standing corn often a safe refuge for partridges 

 from the gun till near the middle of September.* 



* Not in one year in ten are we able, in the north of England, to 

 walk the stubbles and fields for partridges on September 1, though 

 the columns of country newspapers are generally flooded with accounts 

 of partridge shooting on that day. The same ' local correspondents ' 

 always take it for granted also that ' Pheasants ' (or longtails as they 

 usually term them) are as a matter of course universally killed on 

 October 1 when, by the way, the birds are only three-parts grown ! 



