248 PARTRIDGES 



where driving, though regularly practised, 

 does not receive a tithe of the attention 

 it demands. 



Flat and open country, with large 

 fields and just enough high hedges to 

 shelter the guns, is best suited for driving. 

 Hilly and broken ground, or small fields, 

 make it difficult to control the flight of 

 the birds. When partridges, on being 

 flushed, can at once see the whole line of 

 beaters, they are far more likely to fly in 

 the required direction than when a fold 

 in the ground or a thick fence bounding 

 a small field conceals all but the nearest 

 beaters from view. Hilly country has 

 its own advantages too ; a greater variety 

 of sporting and difficult shots are pre- 

 sented to the guns, and the owner can, 

 as it were, eat his cake and have it too, 

 for a fair stock of birds on 1000 acres of 

 his ground will give two or three days' 

 sport in the season, drive he never so 

 wisely, while a skilful driver with the 

 same number of birds on a like acreage 

 in an easier country would leave little 



