THE PARTRIDGE. 150 



Secondly. The following spring and summer months were un- 

 usually dry, and especially suited for the purposes of hatching 

 and rearing the young brood, which often suffer so lamentably from 

 the effects of a long-continued wet spell, as we have before re- 

 marked under a different heading. 



Thirdly. The drought having extended through the summer 

 and even autumn months, all the smaller streams and inland water- 

 courses became entirely dry; and those sections of country thus 

 failing in water were abandoned en masse by all the birds; and 

 this will account for their location among the hills and stubble- 

 fields adjacent to the large river-courses. We met this season with 

 great numbers of partridges on the large and beautifully-cultivated 

 islands of the Susquehanna, but found it rather difficult to shoot 

 them, in consequence of the birds on the first alarm darting along 

 and under the high river-banks, where they conceal themselves so 

 securely that it is quite impossible to drive them out. Our friend 

 C. T. Phillips, Esq., killed this season sixty-one birds in one day, 

 which of itself is sufficient to prove how numerous they must have 

 been; not wishing, however, by this remark, to detract in the 

 least from our friend's skill in shooting; for every one who has 

 been out with him in the field knows that he is one of the very 

 best shots that goes forth from our city ; but in ordinary seasons 

 it is not very often that the most industrious and persevering 

 sportsman will get sixty-one shots in a day, much less bag so 

 many birds. 



One of Mr. Skinner's correspondents, detailing some of the 

 particulars of a day's shooting, states that his companion fired 

 forty-three times, killed thirty-eight, and wounded four, only 

 missing clearly once; and, what is most remarkable of all, this 

 accomplished sportsman, with a double-barrelled flint gun, whirled 

 and fired five times with both barrels, in different directions, killed 

 nine times, and wounded the tenth. This we consider the best 

 record of shooting that has as yet come to our knowledge ; and we 

 agree with the chronicler of these worthy deeds that it required 

 "a ready hand and a quick eye" to accomplish it, when we recol- 



