QUIET PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 



likely as not, gets a thorough chill to go home with. 

 The modern shooting man is, I fear, too ambitious to 

 be merely a "good performer" ; he can kill his birds 

 in excellent style, but he sees little of real sport, which 

 I take to be the finding with care and difficulty, as well 

 as the killing, of your game. However, we may con- 

 sole ourselves with the thoughts that here and there, 

 even in this year 1904, one can still accomplish the rare 

 feat of bagging a brace or two of birds among the corn 

 stooks. There are still quiet bits of countryside, 

 almost forgotten back-waters, left by the rapid stream 

 of latter-day sport, where the corn is still occasionally 

 cut by hand and not by the smooth-shaving mowing 

 machine ; or perhaps, the crops having been laid by 

 wind or rain, the sickle has to take the place of the 

 machine, and there is good lying for the birds. What 

 a real pleasure it is, with another gun or two and reli- 

 able dogs, to get out early into the stubble before the 

 partridges have retired for their siesta, and follow the 

 keen pointer or the more active setter in his quarter- 

 ings ! There may be some potatoes to follow the birds 

 into, or a field or two of turnips, or a piece of clover — a 

 certain find after the birds have scattered a little ; per- 

 chance we may even alight on those good old-fashioned 

 luxuries, a field of beans or a bit of standing barley. If 

 a man cannot hit birds rising at his elbow or under his 

 nose from that magnificent background for the gunner's 

 eye, a piece of fair white barley, he may go home and 

 put up his gun. Was it not an old dean — one of the 

 almost forgotten school of divines who shot and 

 hunted — who upon his deathbed solemnly enjoined his 

 son never to forget to keep for September shooting a 

 patch of standing barley? An hour or two before 

 lunch the bag is steadily mounting up, and the gunners 

 and dogs may turn their attention to those odd nooks 



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