QUIET PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 



likely as not, gets a thorough chill to go home with. 

 The modern shooting man is, I fear, too ambitious to 

 be merely a "good performer"; he can kill his birds 

 in excellent style, but he sees little of real sport, which 

 I take to be the finding with care and difficulty, as well 

 as the killing, of your game. However, we may con- 

 sole ourselves with the thoughts that here and there, 

 even in this year 1904, one can still accomplish the rare 

 feat of bagging a brace or two of birds among the corn 

 stocks. There are still quiet bits of countryside, 

 almost forgotten back-waters, left by the rapid stream 

 of latter-day sport, where the corn is still occasionally 

 cut by hand and not by the smooth-shaving mowing 

 machine ; or perhaps, the crops having been laid by 

 wind or rain, the sickle has to take the place of the 

 machine, and there is good lying for the birds. What 

 a real pleasure it is, with another gun or two and reli- 

 able dogs, to get out early into the stubble before the 

 partridges have retired for their siesta, and follow the 

 keen pointer or the more active setter in his quarter- 

 ings ! There may be some potatoes to follow the birds 

 into, or a field or two of turnips, or a piece of clover a 

 certain find after the birds have scattered a little ; per- 

 chance we may even alight on those good old-fashioned 

 luxuries, a field of beans or a bit of standing barley. If 

 a man cannot hit birds rising at his elbow or under his 

 nose from that magnificent background for the gunner's 

 eye, a piece of fair white barley, he may go home and 

 put up his gun. Was it not an old dean one of the 

 almost forgotten school of divines who shot and 

 hunted who upon his deathbed solemnly enjoined his 

 son never to forget to keep for September shooting a 

 patch of standing barley? An hour or two before 

 lunch the bag is steadily mounting up, and the gunners 

 and dogs may turn their attention to those odd nooks 



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