16 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 



clean farming prevailed stubbles had ceased to be 

 what they once were, a dwarf jungle ; but they still 

 afforded capital cover for partridges, and gave pointers 

 and setters at once a chance and a use. Nowadays, 

 however, we may search parish after parish in all the 

 best arable counties before we find a good old- 

 fashioned stubble, and if one by any accident exists, 

 no sooner are the gleaners out than the wheat - 

 haulmers are in, and autumn culture destroys all the 

 hopes of the sportsmen.' l This mournful picture 

 requires to be discounted by many other considera- 

 tions. 



The partridge is more at home, no doubt, on 

 highly tilled land than where the soil is poor, and a 

 warm open country supplies many of its needs ; but 

 it has never been exclusively a bird of the homestead. 

 True, it is always ready to take advantage of improve- 

 ments, and thrives best where the soil is rich and 

 genial ; yet it has a marked partiality for moorland 

 and mixed cover some of the prettiest partridge- 

 shooting over dogs is still afforded by unreclaimed 

 heaths and mosses. ' Moor partridges are wild-bred 

 birds, which have been brought out on the moors, 

 which are separated, in our southern counties, only 

 by a splashed bank from the cornfields. Having been 

 1 Quarterly A'evteiv, 1873. 



