1 68 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



there happening to be remarkably few turnips or thick 

 cover of any sort. We beat every fence and every 

 corner of each field grass and all running round 

 many of them to gain time, and to get the right side 

 of the birds before they were disturbed, and though 

 the total was nothing remarkable, and might be easily 

 doubled in Norfolk, or other better partridge countries, 

 yet it was a good example of what can be done in a 

 very moderate country with no great stock of birds. 



The commonplace keeper has what I may be for- 

 given for calling a ' rooted' idea that turnips are the 

 natural home of the partridge. As a general rule my 

 experience is that partridges are seldom found in 

 turnips, especially swedes, until they have been driven 

 into them, and many a bag is spoilt by the time 

 consumed in laboriously walking such fields without 

 getting more than a chance shot, while the coveys 

 belonging to the ground are sitting quietly in the 

 fallow, stubble, or grass within a hundred yards of 

 you, fields which the keeper does not think worth while 

 beating. They will no doubt resort to white turnips 

 in hot dry weather to dust and feather themselves, 

 especially when the crop is sown broadcast, as there 

 are then certain open spaces here and there about the 

 field, in which, as well as at the edge**, you will find 

 traces of their scratching and feathering but swedes 



