NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



down another bird, my measure of happiness is indeed 

 complete. That first joy of the youthful gunner can 

 never again be quite recalled ; yet, to the average 

 healthy-minded man, September days spent in the 

 pursuit of partridges bring about as much happiness 

 as is to be extracted from this vale of care. 



The beginning of the twentieth century, with its 

 complete departure from the old partridge-shooting 

 ways and ideas, its wonderful improvements in guns 

 and powder, and its extremely scientific methods on 

 large estates, where huge bags are expected and made, 

 may have brought partridge-shooting within the reach 

 of far more gunners than of old ; yet it may be 

 questioned whether, for pure pleasure of sport, we are 

 any better off than were our grandfathers, with their 

 flint or percussion guns and deliberate habits. 



The keen delight of shooting over dogs is more and 

 more becoming a thing of the past. For my part I 

 can never cease to envy the sportsmen of the first three- 

 quarters of the last century, who shot over pointers 

 and setters, took their time, walked steadily all day, 

 and were content with moderate bags. It is, however, 

 a mistake to believe that the immense bags made by 

 modern gunners at big partridge drives are new to 

 gunnery. On the great sporting estate of Holkham, 

 in Norfolk, where for generations partridge-shooting 

 has been a passion, more birds were killed in the years 

 ^797> 1798, and 1800^ than in the two best seasons 

 between i860 and 1870. Upon other sporting estates 

 very large bags of partridges were made before 1800, 

 even with the old flint and steel weapon. Partridges 

 in those days seem to have been generally even more 

 plentiful than they are at the present time. 



^ III these years the season's bag at Holkham included 3,800, 3,965, 

 and 3,865 partridges respectively. 



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