116 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



over with fine mould and dead leaves the way a 

 rabbit will listen to and dodge its pursuers the 

 running and crouching of French partridges in the 

 copse. As to " Frenchmen," the keeper says they 

 will run like an old cock pheasant, and I think he 

 may be right. I have heard scattered birds calling 

 in the young hazel wood, or marked them down in 

 a certain place, but on going up have failed to flush 

 them. I think the French partridge and the old 

 cock pheasant must prefer flight on foot to flight 

 on wing because in the cover they feel that they 

 will thus expose themselves less to sight and danger. 

 The English partridge may not run so much as 

 the French bird, but it is curious to notice his dis- 

 crimination between dangerous and harmless figures. 

 Look at the covey in the young corn, or the fallow, 

 close to the highway; you drive by them at a walk 

 after the days shooting, point them out over the 

 low hedge to your companion ; they are not dis- 

 comfited. Several are watchful, two or three crouch 

 low, it is not worth while to be up and away ; and 

 no sooner have you passed than they are feeding 

 again. Yet these birds may have been flushed and 

 shot at repeatedly during the day now closing. They 

 rose wild as hawks when the beaters began to range 

 over the fields, they flinched at the sight of a gunner 

 ere a shot had been fired. Again, partridges will 

 distinguish between dangerous and safe figures on 

 foot in the fields. The farm worker can often get 



