384 SHOOTING. 



jucking-place, will seek a fresh one, perhaps about 

 two fields distant ; and if often disturbed at night 

 on their jucking-place, they will seek another 

 stubble-field to feed in, and change their quarters 

 altogether. The most certain method of driving 

 partridges from a farm, is to disturb them night 

 after night at their jucking-place, which is usually 

 in a meadow, where the aftermath is suffered to 

 grow, or in a field rough with rushes, fern, thistles, 

 or heather, adjoining to a corn-field. When a 

 covey is dispersed on a dry hot day, it is necessary 

 to search much longer, and beat closer, for the dis- 

 persed birds, than when the day is cool and the 

 ground moist. A dog should be only slightly rated 

 for running up a bird on a hot day. 



The shooter, on entering a field, should make it 

 a general rule, provided the wind or nature of the 

 ground do not lead him to decide on a contrary 

 course, to beat that side which is nearest the 

 covers ; or, if there be no neighbouring covers, he 

 should beat round the field, leaving the centre of 

 the field to the last. In hot weather birds frequent 

 bare places, sunny hill-sides, or sandy banks, at 

 the root of a tree, or hedge-bottom, where there is 

 plenty of loose loam or sand w r hich they can 

 scratch up. In cold weather they will be found 

 in sheltered places. In cold windy weather those 

 fields only which lie under the wind should be 

 beaten. The warm valleys, the briary cloughs, 

 and glens not over-wooded, .but abounding in fern, 

 underwood, and holly trees, and also those steep 

 hill-sides which lie under the wind, are then places 



