PARTRIDGE DRIVING i8i 



your mark, you will stand a good chance of 

 getting in two, three, or possibly four barrels, if 

 really quick, with a fair chance of success. In 

 Yorkshire, with the gigantic packs which come 

 over the guns, it may not be quite so important 

 as where they are scarcer, but of course every- 

 where the man who shoots the quickest and with 

 most sense will make the biggest bags. 



A few words more ere leaving the grouse. I 

 have spoken of flat ground, which is naturally by 

 far the easiest to shoot over ; but in many places of 

 course the birds come swinging round the sides of 

 or over hills without the least warning. Then it is 

 a case of shooting quickly indeed, and the game 

 becomes far more dangerous, as a follow round at 

 such birds may often lead to something terrible 

 happening. It is far better to miss endless grouse, 

 or let any number of them go by without even 

 firing, than to run the risk of injuring some person, 

 which may produce lifelong regret and misery. 



Now for the partridge, to my thinking a far 

 more difficult bird to shoot than its great rival 

 of the heather, for a grouse, if deciding to go 

 to a certain place, will not usually turn from its 

 flight ; but a partridge frequently twists and turns 

 in the most extraordinary manner when seeing the 

 guns, after getting over a hedge or what not. One 

 of the first people who went in for partridge-driving 

 systematically was the late General Hall, who had 

 some splendid sport at Six-Mile Bottom, of which 

 the Duke of Cambridge has now the lease ; but from 



