136 LEWIS'S AMERICAN SPORTSMAN. 



to the young tyro. In compiling this work, it is our earnest de- 

 sire to bring the young sportsman forward so rapidly in all that 

 relates to the crafts of the field, that, with a little industry and 

 ordinary attention, he may, in the second season of his debUt, 

 possess the same skill in hunting and bagging game as it would 

 have required five or six years of regular apprenticeship for him 

 to arrive at. 



As before stated, partridges are formed into coveys, and are 

 sufficiently large to shoot, in the month of October, which is the 

 time appointed by legislative enactments for the killing of this 

 game in several of the States ; New Jersey, however, having in 

 view the preservation of the second brood, we suppose, prolongs 

 this period to the following month. But few partridges are taken 

 at this early season in traps, owing to the great abundance of 

 grain, seed, and insects to be found in the stubble-fields and clover- 

 patches ; nevertheless, incalculable numbers of running birds now 

 fall victims to the nets set by farmer-boys and the negroes of the 

 adjoining States. A gentleman residing on the Chesapeake Bay, 

 a short distance from Havre de Grace, informed us, not long since, 

 that his immediate neighbor caught in this way, during one season, 

 on his own estate, no less than nine hundred partridges, which he 

 kept in coops, and gave out to his negroes as ordinary food during 

 the running season, besides supplying his friends in the city with 

 considerable numbers. This account may seem incredible to those 

 not familiar with the fecundity of partridges, and still less ac- 

 quainted with the immense armies of these birds that congregate 

 together during their migratory trips, and the regularity and perti- 

 nacity with which they pursue their course, sometimes passing 

 through the heart of villages that obstruct their way. The estate 

 upon which this large number of birds were captured is peculiarly 

 well situated for intercepting the progress of these voyagers, it be- 

 ing a neck of low land, bounded on one side by the bay and on the 

 ether by a wide stream of water, thus forming a kind of peninsula, 

 encompassed by high lands, upon which the birds congregate for 

 the purposes of incubation, and which they abandon again for the 



