4 PARTRIDGES 



those lands where farming most thrives, 

 where the largest number of farm hands 

 are engaged in cultivating the land, and 

 where a considerate and conscientious 

 landowner lives on the best of terms with 

 tenant and labourer alike, that partridges 

 do best, and it is there that the big totals 

 at which our social reformers hold up 

 their hands in horror, are obtained, not at 

 the expense, but actually with the con- 

 nivance and approval of the entire rural 

 community. 



The countryman, indeed, is not likely 

 to be taken in by all the nonsense which 

 is now talked about sport as part of the 

 crusade against the amusements of the 

 privileged classes. He knows well enough 

 that partridges do no damage to farmers ; 

 that the whole neighbourhood benefits 

 directly by the presence of the shooting 

 tenant who spends his autumn in their 

 midst; and that good watching by the 

 gamekeepers saves many a poultry roost 

 from the depredations of the local poachers, 

 and farms from the dangers of gates left 



