172 THE PARTRIDGE 



ridge's call-note, in creeping about the hedge- 

 rows, and in " spotting " the exact position 

 occupied by a covey that had collected to " jug "; 

 and all could shoot with some degree of certainty 

 at a motionless bird on the ground. Till I knew 

 that these fine sportsmen shared my privilege, I 

 wondered greatly why on the uplands between 

 the village and the farm the habits of the coveys 

 changed suddenly after mid-September, whereas 

 those of other broods remained unaltered except, 

 as might have been expected, at the ingathering 

 of harvest. The birds became as wild as hawks, 

 took wing directly I appeared over a hedge, and 

 sometimes travelled long distances before they 

 dared to alight. Later, I never found them in 

 their old homes, but I generally managed to 

 discover their new haunts, and there, with 

 caution, my dogs could approach them and give 

 me the chance of a " right and left." 



Indeed till the dawn of the happy-go-lucky 

 Boxing Day, which upset all calculations of 

 sport, and generally ended, for me, the part- 

 ridge season, I could rely on finding, among 

 the rough pastures and stubbles of the sunny 

 hillside, any covey I had recently flushed within 

 a radius of a quarter of a mile. Also to a small 

 plantation on the slope came not a few of the 

 wild pheasants that had found discomfort in 

 adjacent woods. As the years went by, I became 



