THEIR DEFENCE 3 



high office to lend them weight and 

 ensure their wide circulation and ready 

 acceptance, it is indeed time for some of 

 us, who have the best interests of sport at 

 heart, to bestir ourselves and make our 

 voices heard in defence of what we hold 

 to be a fair and legitimate recreation. 



With stags and pheasants we have not 

 here to deal, but in so far as our little 

 friend the partridge is concerned in the 

 sweeping condemnation above quoted, we 

 can with confidence give the lie direct to 

 such an absurd proposition. 



One may even say, without any exag- 

 geration, that unless the square miles, at 

 which the finger of righteous wrath was 

 pointed, are inhabited by numbers of men, 

 women and children, well disposed to 

 those who preserve and shoot over the 

 ground, you may throw your land away 

 in such profligate extravagance as you 

 will, but you will seek in vain to make a 

 good partridge-shooting. 



For it is an axiom that partridges 

 ' follow the plough/ and it is exactly on 



