50 PARTRIDGES 



Much has been heard of recent years 

 about a mysterious and hitherto unknown 

 disease, its exact nature undiagnosed, 

 which is said to have decimated the par- 

 tridges through wide districts in East 

 Anglia and the southern counties, and 

 which some would have us believe will 

 eventually lead to the extermination of 

 the race, if no measures of prevention be 

 adopted. 



Poisoning by arsenical wheat dressings, 

 sickness induced by new-fangled chemical 

 manures and sheep dips, contagion from 

 the horde of Hungarians which have been 

 let loose among our native birds, and a 

 general deterioration of the partridge 

 race from what they were in the time of 

 our fathers, have been variously assigned 

 as thefons et origo malorum. 



But the fact has still to be proved, 

 before the causes thereof need be con- 

 sidered. For though it may be admitted 

 that occasional partridges have died from 

 arsenical poisoning, and that there has 

 been some wasting sickness where chemical 



