1 62 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



of you, and the turnips arc high and thick, the whole 

 organisation usually seems to collapse, the line gets 

 into confusion, the dogs run too far ahead, and 

 put up fresh birds out of range, or the pause is so 

 long that all the broken birds in front of you run 

 gradually to the end, and then get up in a bunch 

 without much execution being done among them. 



Now observe how your dog-breaker, assisted by 

 the beaters, trained to mark the fall of the birds and 

 plant sticks, would simplify all this. You would send 

 him first for those that fell behind the line, which he 

 would have marked himself. While he was picking 

 up these, the line would advance slowly to where the 

 fallen birds are in front, and plant the sticks wherever 

 they cannot at once see and pick them up. If, as is 

 likely, more rise and are killed as you advance, they 

 must be marked as well as possible in the same way. 

 The dog-man will have by this time retrieved what 

 fell behind, and will be following close, and seeking 

 wherever sticks are planted. If he comes to the mark 

 of a bird that is a runner, he should leave it till he has 

 gathered all the dead ones, knowing that it must either 

 have run forward, or to one side, on to fresh ground ; 

 the line meanwhile advancing to the end. If there 

 is another beat to be taken in the same field, and the 

 runner has not yet been found, he will be on the fresh 



