264 A DAY ON A NORFOLK MERE 



These barren stretches were succeeded by half- 

 cultivated fields, and by forest-like woods, in all 

 the glory of their fresh and varied greenery, the 

 first green of the larch struggling hard, as it always 

 seems to me to do, for the prize of beauty with the 

 first green of the opening beech. The country 

 swarmed with feathered as well as with four-footed 

 game. In every field were to be seen three or four 

 pairs of partridges, English and red-legged, scamp- 

 ering, one after the other, in the full enjoyment of 

 their first love, and fancying, as what young lovers 

 do not, and is it not right that they should ? that 

 the world is made for love and for them. I re- 

 marked upon their extraordinary number: "Yes," 

 said my host quietly, " I was shooting here, one 

 day, and we had eight guns posted along that line 

 of bushes you see between those two fields. At 

 the first drive we killed forty-seven and a half brace, 

 and, in the return drive over the same place, when 

 the birds came rather slower, as the red-legs always 

 do when they are tired with their first long flight, 

 we killed fifty-seven brace ! " This was slaughter 

 enough for any one ; but my friend, like all true 

 sportsmen, is at least as keen for watching wild 

 life and for preserving it, as for taking it away ; and 

 I incline to think that, as in my own case, so in 



