GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 203 



extract from the ' Gentleman's Recreation,' previously 

 quoted above in the chapter on Driving, for the 

 knowledge shown by these old-time sportsmen and 

 poachers of the use that may be made of the running 

 rather than the flying instinct of the partridge, a 

 point not half enough studied or utilised. 



This instinct may and should be largely taken 

 advantage of in managing pheasants, but except in 

 half-mooning I do not know that it is ever turned to 

 account with partridges. 



The ubiquitous watchfulness necessary to a par- 

 tridge-keeper must be employed against the setting of 

 snares, which, as it can only be successfully done on 

 banks or at the edges of fields where the birds pretty 

 regularly dust themselves, ought to be easily detected 

 and frustrated. Killing partridges by steel traps is 



hedges darkening the moon's light, when the partridges will 

 drive no farther, but instantly fly ; the poachers, however, 

 spring them in the evening with a spaniel, and mark the spot 

 by a stick and piece of white paper ; the tunnel is then set down 

 on the spot where the birds jucked from, and to which they are 

 certain to return, they thus readily find and drive them with a 

 horse under the net. To prevent this, take some partridges 

 from the outskirts of the manors, cut off the bearing claws, and 

 turn them out ; they cannot then run, and always spring ; if one 

 bird springs, the rest of the covey are also sure to rise ; this 

 plan is perhaps the best for defeating the havock made by the 

 tunnel-net ; the poachers themselves term it taking an tmfair 

 advantage of them.' Daniell's Rural Sports, vol. ii. p. 407. 



