258 LETTERS TO YOUNG SHOOTERS LETTER 



from the leaves in wet weather), though I have seen 

 many belts of firs planted with this object. 



As a covey of partridges will haunt the same 

 ground all the season, and when the spring approaches 

 separate into pairs and rear other coveys on that 

 ground again, this continual interbreeding is sure to 

 result in a scanty stock after a few years. 



As before pointed out, the breaking up of the 

 coveys, and the extermination of the old pairs, will 

 much assist in producing strong breeding birds, and 

 thus plenty of young ones, whether you achieve this 

 end by the easier plan of partridge driving, or by the 

 more uncertain method of walking up the game.* 



* In his laudable anxiety to kill down the old cocks, I have heard 

 an owner of an estate direct his friends, when partridge driving, to 

 select for their aim the birds that showed the well-known brown 

 patch on the breast ! The brown patch, or, as it is usually termed, 

 horseshoe, on the breast of a partridge is, however, no indication of 

 sex, as both the cock and hen bird are wont to show this mark when 

 full grown. ' What a preponderance of cocks ! ' is a remark one often 

 hears when a bag of partridges are counted out, everyone, as a matter 

 of course, assuming that the cocks alone have the dark marks on 

 the breast ! This fallacy was first exploded by Colonel Montagu in 

 his famous ornithological work written no less than ninety years ago 

 (in 1802) ! The Colonel writes : ' It has long been an esteemed 

 opinion among sportsmen and naturalists that the female partridge 

 had none of the bay feathers on the breast like the male. This, 

 however, is a mistake, as we have proved by the unerring rule of dis- 

 section ; for, happening to kill nine old birds one day, with very little 

 variation as to the bay markings on the breast, we were led to open 

 them all, by which w r e discovered five of them were females, and by 

 re-examining the plumage we found the males could only be known 

 by the superior lightness of colour about the head, which alone 

 seems to be a mark of distinction after the first or second year. . . . 

 In the female the bare skin behind the eye is less conspicuous than 

 in the male, and with very little red.' 



