150 PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 



calm, they will lie in windy weather. Birds are fre- 

 quently as much on the listen as on the watch; and this 

 is why, towards the end of the season, we sometimes do 

 best in boisterous weather. 



Many an excellent shot has come home with an empty 

 bag, under the following circumstances! He has gone 

 out in a cold raw day, and found that the birds were 

 scarce and wild, and that even in turnips they would not 

 lie. But had he then tried one kind of land, to which 

 almost every man, as well as his dog, has a dislike 

 the fallows, he might possibly have got some good 

 double shots ; because the birds, finding it a misery to 

 run here, particularly if he walked across the fallows, 

 will sometimes lie till they are sprung the fairest possible 

 shots. 



Let me conclude, under this head, with a few ob- 

 servations as to taking horses into the field. If birds are 

 wild, a sportsman, who goes out with his man, and has 

 no other attendant, will bring in more game if he con- 

 trives to mount that man, or rather a light boy, behind 

 him ; because, the moment the dog stands, he can then 

 dismount (by throwing his right leg over the horse's neck), 

 and leave the man in full possession of the Rosinante, 

 instead of being encumbered with a led horse, which 

 frequently precludes the possibility of his galloping on 

 to mark a covey, or follow up a towering bird. More- 

 over, it requires no conjurer to discover, that two 

 horses make more noise than one ; and all noise, after 

 the first few weeks, is the ruin of sport. The gentle- 

 man with his stud would say, Why not have three 

 horses? This, I admit, is a more dignified way of 

 taking the field, than the subaltern turn-out of the 

 Johnny Trot behind ; but then we have the clatter of 

 three horses, with the chatter of two servants' tongues* 



