xiv. PARTRIDGE SHOOTING (PART 77), 'DRIVING' 233 



how this sport may be enjoyed with a limited number 

 of assistants. 



Partridge driving on a large scale, with thirty brace 

 or so at one drive, and two score or more assistants, 



lay be seen in our eastern counties, particularly 

 in the neighbourhood of Newmarket, in Cambridge- 

 shire, is just the same in principle as the modest 

 drive of a couple of 10-acre fields in a less notable 

 district, and which may result in but a half-dozen 

 birds being bagged. 



The common idea of partridge driving is that an 

 army of drivers are indispensable to send the birds on 

 to the guns. This is a fallacy ; for, though a long 

 line of men can drive a larger extent of land than a 

 small number is capable of, it is often but a question 

 in the latter case of shorter drives, and more of them. 



If you know the country, and the natural flight of 

 the partridges on it, and have some fair fields of cover 

 between which to place the guns, you can manage to 

 show a good deal of sport with from eight to ten men to 

 drive the birds, and four or five friends to shoot them. 



Short drives, if well organised, not seldom give 

 superior sport, and a better total at the end of the 

 day, than when long ones are attempted ; as it is 



er to drive the birds straight to the guns off a 

 small strip of country than it is off a large one. 



You may take it that a mile is the outside distance 



partridges can with any certainty be driven ; that is to 



a drive of half a mile to the guns and a half-mile 



