NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



were more partridges in Britain than during the shoot- 

 ing season of the latter year. Gilbert White long ago 

 pointed out how these birds favour a parching year. 

 " In the dry summers of 1740 and 1741," he says, ''and 

 for some years after, they swarmed to such a degree 

 that parties of unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty 

 and sometimes thirty brace a day." What, I wonder, 

 would our modern gunners say of such prodigious 

 bags? And what would Gilbert White have thought 

 of the six compilers of a bag of 1,458 partridges in a 

 single day of Hampshire shooting — a record made 

 in 1897 at The Grange, Lord Ashburton's place in that 

 county? It is enough to make the old parson-naturalist 

 shift uneasily in his grave ! 



Hungarian partridges, which are of the same species 

 as our own British bird, have for some years past been 

 freely imported into this country and turned down. 

 It is claimed for them, and, I think, with reason, that 

 they have been a decided success, adding largely to the 

 stock of native-grown birds, and contributing in a very 

 marked degree to the improvement of sport in localities 

 where partridge-shooting had been no better than 

 moderate. The blend seems to be a good one ; the 

 foreign birds are strong and hardy, and free from 

 disease ; and there seems no reason to doubt that 

 the stock of indigenous birds will be actually improved 

 and strengthened by this introduction : such, at least, 

 is the impression of those most competent to form an 

 opinion. The Duke of Portland has been one of the 

 largest importers of Hungarian birds, which have been 

 turned down chiefly upon his Nottinghamshire estates. 

 Here the shooting has been enormously improved. 

 Some years ago, before the introduction of these birds, 

 a bag of 200 brace of partridges in a day was there 

 looked upon as a really good one. During a recent 



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