1 86 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



make, I beg them to believe me sincere, and anxious 

 only, in the interests of all sportsmen, to publish 

 what I conceive to be the true deductions from a long 

 experience of various manors, large and small, plenti 

 fully stocked, and the reverse. 



I will start by saying that most English manors 

 have not anything like the stock of partridges which 

 they ought to produce. This I attribute to three 

 causes. First, the keeper's work is not, so far as 

 partridges are concerned, well understood or properly 

 carried out. Second, which is a result in part of the 

 first, there is a good deal more egg-stealing and 

 poaching than there should be. Third, the stock, 

 being low, is too much reduced by hard shooting. 



Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire are, without 

 doubt, the pick of the English counties for game, yet 

 in 1887, every one was electrified to hear that all the 

 records of these counties had been beaten in Hamp- 

 shire ! Had it been Yorkshire or Essex, or say 

 Nottinghamshire or Northamptonshire, many would 

 have wondered, but have recollected that in these 

 counties there have always been the traditions of 

 great 'shikar.' But Hampshire seemed incredible. 

 A few, who had years before noted the good soil and 

 the improving totals of this county, were not so much 

 surprised, but to the majority of the world it was 



