STATISTICAL 319 



common alike being eagerly sought for 

 by the economical Dutchman as a cheap 

 form of food. 



In modern France there is partridge- 

 shooting of the best, where game is in any 

 way preserved ; in September 1898, on 

 the vast plains of Beauce, between Orleans 

 and Chartres, twenty guns accounted for 

 3000 partridges in two days' shooting over 

 only four or five farms. 



The grand hunts in Portugal, where 

 every species of game from a wolf to a 

 titlark figures in the bag, would possess 

 certain novel features to any of us who 

 are only accustomed to our own days of 

 tamer sport. The Count D'Arnoso thus 

 describes the procedure : 



As a rule Sunday is selected, so that a greater 

 number of people may take part in the hunt. 

 All armed, they form a large circle, covering a 

 great extent of ground. The circle gradually 

 contracts. The proprietors of the land and the 

 best shots wait at the point on which the circle 

 will converge, and where the drive will therefore 

 terminate. Occasionally, only after some hours' 

 driving, is there heard an indistinct and distant 

 noise, which gradually and slowly increasing as 



