THE FIRST OF SEPTEMBER. 195 



boats, the crews of which were waiting to commence 

 operations. It was a great wonder nothing larger 

 than duck was bagged that morning. The second 

 time was also a "first," but that of October, and our 

 object in being up betimes was to shoot along the 

 edge of a Royal preserve, where the keepers had the 

 bad habit of running dogs along the outside every 

 morning to drive in any pheasants that might have 

 wandered over the boundary. As our shooting was 

 only on War Department lands we could not object, 

 but in the way I have narrated we circumvented the 

 Royal keepers, and a very pretty little bag of long- 

 tails we had accumulated by the time the gold-laced 

 " velveteens " appeared on the scene. If things were 

 habitually managed in the old days as the books tell 

 us, we can only say how great a change has come 

 over the spirit of partridge-shooting. 



Now we read the reports of the shooting in the 

 papers of the 2nd September, and they mostly run : 

 " Not much shooting has been done in this district 

 owing to the large quantity of corn still standing," or, 

 " Only a few sportsmen were out yesterday in this 

 neighbourhood, and they report that many of the 

 coveys are still small and weak." Nevertheless, there 

 are few sportsmen who do not kill a few brace of 

 the little brown birds on the opening day, and that 

 for the reason I have given above i.e., that it is the 

 first shooting that many of us get in the year. 



It is almost unnecessary for me to say that the 

 methods employed for circumventing the bird in 

 question are now mostly different from those employed 



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