LEAVES FEOM A GAME BOOK. 77 



On the 1st of September this year I found myself 

 staying at Burnham Beeches with the late Montague 

 Williams, our party being made up by Willie Lawson and 

 Harry Parker, when in wettish weather we got eighty- 

 three birds between us. A somewhat ludicrous thing 

 happened during the day. Williams' keeper, who rejoiced 

 in the odd-sounding name of Puddephat, having reared 

 some 200 tame partridges, had turned them out in coveys 

 of twenty, and during all the morning master and man 

 were continually wondering why we had not met with any 

 of them. At last the whole 200 birds rose in one big lot 

 out of a grass-field, only to fly, much to our disgust, 

 straight off our ground. During the rest of the day 

 we could hear great popping going on in the enemy's 

 camp, and there was but little doubt that our neigh- 

 bours had got behind this large pack of birds and 

 "mopped them up." It is well known that hand- 

 reared partridges, when divided and turned out in 

 coveys, will be nearly certain to re-assemble unless the 

 lots be placed so far apart as to be out of calling 

 distance from each other. 



