228 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER xm. 



memory, and train his eyes for the purpose. The 

 surest method of finding dead birds is for the men who 

 accompany the shooters to each carry four or five thin 

 sticks painted white, and for them to place these in 

 the ground at the spots the birds are supposed to 

 have fallen at. Direct the men to place their sticks 

 first, and to look for the birds afterwards ; it takes no 

 time to do this, and many and many a bird will be 

 saved to the bag. If any bird is not found within a 

 reasonable time, leave its stick to mark the spot, 

 either for a man with a dog to remain to seek it, or 

 for further search the following day by a keeper. 

 This is the only practical method of finding a large 

 percentage of dead and wounded partridges that I 

 could ever discover.* 



* A good marker is born, not made ! Some men will walk straight 

 to the very spot at which a bird dropped, when others will not seek 

 within many yards of it, though it fell close at hand. One man will 

 return a half-mile and pick up a towered bird, killed perhaps an hour 

 before, whilst a second may not even look in the field that contains 

 it ! The best method of marking a towered bird, unless you go for 

 it at once, which is often out of the question, is to insert a stick in 

 the ground at the exact spot you stood on when you watched its 

 flight and subsequent fall. You can then return to the stick, and 

 your landmarks will recur to your memory. If you have no such 

 aid to your recollection as I suggest, but start a few yards to one side 

 or the other of the place from whence you originally marked the bird, 

 all your landmarks will be astray, and you may seek a couple of 

 hundred yards or more from the object of your search. 



