NATURE AND SPORT IN BRITAIN 



cadence, is not yet quite a thing of the past. They 

 should encourage those who still have a fancy for quiet 

 sport of this kind not to be laughed out of their 

 pleasures by men who believe only in big shoots, big 

 lunches, and big bags. In the same number of the 

 Field in which the above letter appeared another 

 sportsman wrote to say that he was one of a party of 

 three guns who killed fifteen brace of partridges over 

 dogs in a short day of four hours during the last week 

 of September. And yet another writer added that on 

 October i4th he had killed, to his own gun, nine brace 

 of birds over a pointer dog, besides sundry " various." 

 These and other evidences, together with my own 

 experiences, tell me that although shooting over dogs 

 has been completely abandoned in most districts, it 

 is still pursued quietly here and there. Probably it 

 will be so pursued for a good many years to come. 

 I believe that upon the whole the man who shoots over 

 dogs, although he may not be so good a performer 

 with the gun as his neighbour, who will condescend 

 to shoot only driven birds, obtains in the aggregate 

 a good deal more pleasure, more healthy exercise, and 

 more variety from his method of shooting. 



Yet although men, even now only arrived at middle 

 age, who were entered to shooting over dogs, may 

 excusably lament the decadence of this delightful form 

 of sport, there is still much to be thankful for. There is 

 plenty of room in broad England for the various forms 

 of shooting now practised. Happy is the man who, 

 although he may have a leaning to a particular style 

 of sport, can yet find pleasure in any one of them. 

 The partridges are still with us always ; the face of old 

 England changes but little in the procession of the years ; 

 there is still plenty of sport and good-fellowship to 

 be gleaned from the pursuit of the bird of September. 



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