PARTRIDGE BAGS AND DRIVING 261 



all the others, were bad, because there was no other way of 

 getting a bag of wild birds ; but probably if nobody had ever 

 tried to do so there would have been plenty of partridges. In 

 other words, it was bad shooting that destroyed the stock. But 

 more than this, partridge driving is liked ; it has caused much 

 greater attention to be paid to the partridge than ever before, 

 because it is so much better sport than turnip-trotting, and so 

 much more bag- rilling than shooting over the majority of show- 

 bred or show-dog crossed pointers and setters. It takes a 

 very good dog indeed to please in a turnip-field and to render 

 it unnecessary to form line to beat up the partridges. Besides 

 that, driving is a social amusement, whereas shooting over dogs 

 is only good when there are but two guns or less. The 

 popularity of the big day extends to beaters, farm hands, and 

 farmers, whereas for the old method these people were merely 

 tolerated. Toleration did not assist preserving; popularity 

 does so. 



Although a swerving covey of English birds will present 

 a task fit for a king, there are very many very easy driven 

 birds, including the majority of straight-coming Frenchmen. 

 Besides this, the position of the shooter makes them easy or 

 difficult as the case may be. Put too close under a high fence, 

 the birds are difficult; put farther back, they swerve, or turn 

 back over the beaters. When standing up to quite low fences, 

 the chances are very easy, and when the sun is in one's eyes 

 they are too difficult for sport. The most beautiful shooting 

 is when some birds come over, and some between, a row of 

 high elm trees such as one frequently sees in the Midlands, 

 but less often in the Eastern Counties. 



There is no more beautiful sport than shooting partridges 

 over good dogs, and it is easy to get them good enough for 

 the work in wild country, where they are almost exclusively 

 employed, but it takes brains as well as nose and pace for a 

 dog to be a help to the two guns in turnips a couple of feet 

 high, and such as contain a hundred thrushes, blackbirds, leverets, 

 rabbits, and pheasant poults to every covey of partridges. It is 

 true that if shooters in line, for sentimental reasons, have a 



