PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 235 



it is more difficult to be a good shot at 

 driven partridges than it was in the days 

 of walking and shooting over dogs. So 

 far as actual marksmanship is concerned, 

 there can be no comparison, for the 

 driven bird offers far more variety of 

 pace, angle, and curve, and can at times 

 be as difficult a mark as is ever presented 

 to the gun. On the other hand, things 

 are made very easy for the shooter, the 

 art of killing the normal driven bird with 

 fair certainty is largely a question of 

 practice, while any one may sometimes 

 find the simplest bird very easy to miss 

 after tramping over anything between ten 

 and twenty miles of turnips on a hot day 

 in September. 



So far as the actual difficulties of 

 realizing every chance throughout the 

 day are in question, there is in all prob- 

 ability very little to choose one way 

 or the other. Yet, while there is small 

 satisfaction to be derived from missing 

 an easy chance because your foot is 

 balanced on a turnip, or weariness makes 



