PARTRIDGES AND PHEASANTS. 151 



Maharajah's estate is, as I write, in the market ; and Dhuleep 

 Singh himself told me, in course of conversation before he 

 left for abroad, how much he felt the parting with this 

 admirably managed domain where he has shown the ultima 

 thulce of scientific rearing, and beaten all records in the 

 number of game brought to bag in a day or in a season. 

 When I laughingly asked him if he was going to cultivate 

 the chickor or preserve sand grouse in Runjeet Singh's 

 fertile plains, he shook his head despondingly, and suggested 

 the near future might see a sterner sport on the Indian 

 frontier. 



Here at home there is no break in the value or sports- 

 manly estimation of shooting and shootings. As far as the 

 lesser species is concerned, if they escape politicians, I 

 cannot see why they should not multiply and nourish greatly. 

 Our last agricultural returns show that the kingdom is 

 slowly but surely turning to a grass and orchard country, 

 and glebe and meadow in maugre of a few sceptics is by 

 no means adverse to the russet birds. Thus one sportsman 

 writes " I must take exception to the idea that a grass 

 country, no matter how well preserved, rarely affords good 

 partridge shooting. Some of the best partridge shooting 

 I had some time ago was over a large tract of grazing land. 

 I found it well stocked with birds, and, being under an 

 impression that the grain of a tillage farm was necessary 

 to their subsistence, I opened the crops of the birds, which 

 were very fat, and found nothing but grass seeds in them. 

 The long grass and ditches and briar-covered dykes afford 

 them plenty of shelter." 



I can endorse this, as probably many other sportsmen 

 can, having brought down partridges as thick and heavy on 

 the grassy Hampshire downs as any that ever came from 

 Essex flats or Suffolk turnip-fields. Not only is -wheat not 

 absolutely necessary for their constitution, but where cereals 

 will ripen in the Highlands partridges may be established ; 

 and any laird who would try should get a few sittings of 



