PARTRIDGES AND PHEASANTS. 163 



it, laid out in the game rooms of country mansions. And 

 finally, when only the outermost twigs of elms are tagged 

 with yellow leaves well there is still something to be done. 

 We will suppose a shooter rises moderately early for 

 enthusiasm must be tempered by experience in this matter 

 while the October mist lingers in quiet hollows, and 

 gossamer laces the tall grasses and bramble sprays. He 

 breakfasts, and forthwith sets out, if of rational and quiet 

 inclinations, with a well-chosen friend, a brace, or perhaps 

 two, of steady setters, and a couple of bearers. Such an 

 array combines the comfort of individual sport with reason- 

 able chances of securing a good bag. Large parties I 

 abhor, while, on the other hand, two or three guns, with 

 bearers between them, are the least which can be reasonably 

 expected to give a decent account of the game flushed, and 

 properly work the ground in an open country. So we will 

 set to work, five of us, all told, including the keeper. We 

 have hardly swung our legs over the gate that separates our 

 first field from the road, when up spring a pair of partridges 

 from the cart ruts in front, twisting themselves over the 

 twelve-foot hawthorns before we can draw a head on them. 

 A little contretemps of this sort is by no means without its 

 useful purpose. The guns forthwith pull themselves together, 

 keep their weather eye open, and if again taken unawares 

 fully deserve all those hard things that will be said of them. 

 A little further on, out of sight of the footway, we bag our 

 first birds, an old cock, who sat overlong, wondering whether 

 we were harvesters come back again or open foemen, and 

 two youngsters who relied in the parental sagacity. We are 

 not above picking these birds up and stroking down their 

 exquisitely blended plumage of grey and russet, provided 

 our proceedings do not unduly interfere with the comfort 

 and decorum of the line. We greatly resent having our 

 game snapped up and crammed into that leather atrocity, 

 a hot game bag, before we have given a glance at it. Surely 

 if a man neither works his own dogs nor sees the birds his 



