PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 225 



the heat of action may easily turn into 

 tragedy. 



The one disadvantage of this method, 

 apart from the care in execution it entails, 

 is that the birds cannot be pushed on in 

 the direction that they are wanted to 

 go with any certainty, for it may well 

 happen that as many will squat and 

 eventually go back as will rise wild and 

 go forward. 



In the good old days when turnips were 

 sown broadcast, when hedges were rough 

 and tangled, and the sickle left the stubble 

 knee-deep after harvest, the pointer or the 

 setter was an inevitable accompaniment 

 of partridge- shooting. The trim hedge- 

 rows and close-shorn stubbles of modern 

 farming give no scope for shooting over 

 dogs on the manors of the south, yet 

 nothing but the fact that they have gone 

 out of fashion reason enough for nine- 

 tenths of the imitative human race 

 prevents the profitable employment of 

 dogs in many a wilder country where 

 good holding cover is always plentiful. 



15 



