116 ACCESSIBLE FIELD SPORTS. 



weed, and recline comfortably in my arm-chair, I feel how 

 much I have reason to thank the Creator for the blessings 

 He has so bounteously showered upon me. But to our 

 work : The first day's partridge (Perdrix Virginiensis) 

 shooting of the season is past, and, like all its pre- 

 decessors, is numbered with days gone by, one sole 

 peculiarity marking it ; namely, that the birds, gene- 

 rally speaking, were larger, stronger, and more nume- 

 rous than I eyer remember seeing them. The weather, 

 too, could not have been more appropriate ; bright, 

 clear, and bracing, with just sufficient wind and damp- 

 ness to make the scent good. Although, the previous 

 evening, 7 A.M. was the hour appointed for breakfast, and 

 all promised most faithfully to be present at that time, 

 it was fully an hour later before the muster-roll could 

 be read over without finding absentees. Perhaps the 

 cause of this remissness may be indicated by repeated 

 calls for brandy and soda-water at an early hour, a 

 demand which, if I remember aright, is always more 

 than ominous. However, by a few minutes after nine 

 we left the house, and, with many a pungent joke 

 and sharp repartee, entered the belt of woodland that 

 divided us from the prairie. 



At this season (October),* who, that has the slightest 



* In tlie majority of States partridge shooting commences on the 

 1st October 



