PARTRIDGES IN THE FIELDS 15 



that serve to enhance the security of their camping 

 ground. Out in the open meadow the slightest noise 

 is heard readily enough. Thus the chance of a fox 

 or any other wild animal stealing upon them unawares 

 is reduced to a minimum. Not only is the preter- 

 natural intuition of danger peculiar to the old male 

 bird of a covey constantly exercised, but each and 

 every individual is on the alert at the slightest 

 warning, and their risk is thus considerably reduced. 

 Of course there are careful observers up and down 

 the country who declare that the partridge has 

 fallen upon hard times. They complain dolefully 

 enough that wire fencing is in the ascendent, and 

 that the old-fashioned hedges which gave good cover 

 to the birds in the nesting-time have been grubbed 

 up in many instances. They point mournfully to the 

 general adoption of newfangled methods of farming, 

 and lament the substitution of the mowing-machine 

 for the scythe. In their eyes there was more merit 

 in a sickle than in the latest and most completely 

 furnished reaping-machine. The primitive imple- 

 ments of husbandry that satisfied farmers of the old 

 school are good enough, they argue, for all reasonable 

 requirements at the present day. ' Fifty years ago 

 the use of the scythe was partially, of the reaping- 

 machine wholly, unknown. It is true that where 



