JULY. 109 



LATE PARTRIDGES. 



July 12. By this time you can always tell whether 

 the partridges will be a ragged lot at the beginning 

 of the shooting season. In Norfolk, which may claim 

 pre-eminence as a partridge county, some coveys 

 were already on the wing early in July ; but many of 

 the birds were still upon eggs, while here and there 

 you might even see pairs of old birds loitering about 

 together during the day, showing that their nests 

 were not yet filled. By the beginning of September 

 these later broods would be no further advanced than 

 the forward coveys of July; and it would be poor 

 sport firing into the brown of a mob of little birds no 

 bigger than sparrows, and scarcely able to flutter 

 over a hedge. Often, indeed, you may see the little 

 fellows rise ambitiously in the wake of their cluttering 

 parents, and essay to top a tangled fence, only to 

 land, like half-fledged sparrows, plump in the middle 

 of it. But a surer pitfall for their feeble wings is a 

 road with hedge on either side. Here you may 

 sometimes, as you pass, observe the old birds skim 

 lightly over both hedges, while the young ones, having 

 done their little best to get over the first, drop in a 

 shower on the roadway just in front of you. 



FAMILY TACTICS. 



Then it is pretty to see how the mother will in- 

 stantly return, landing on the road some yards off, 

 and scuttling about in semicircles, in such a state of 

 frantic and noisy excitement as effectually to distract 

 your attention from her children, while the more 



