PARTRIDGES 39 



Who knows ? Who cares ? Certainly not the 

 men who spend every day that the law allows them 

 during the remainder of the year pursuing any birds 

 which happen to be on their shoot. I really believe 

 that there must be men in existence who are under 

 the impression that partridges spring up, as it were, 

 spontaneously, after the manner of charlock plants ; 

 that is, sometimes there arise many and sometimes 

 few. On the general run of partridge ground there 

 is never anything like a stock of birds at the end of 

 the season. It is a melancholy fact that the same 

 remark applies in countless instances to capital 

 natural partridge ground, even on the First. Yet 

 the few people who realize how partridges respond 

 to careful protection and encouragement have been 

 reaping rich harvests. For instance, you hear, as in 

 a delicious dream of a fairyland of partridges, of a 

 week at Holkham, at The Grange, at Stratton, and 

 a few other places where partridges are estimated at 

 their proper value and treated accordingly. 



But to return to the lucky survivors (many of 

 them cripples) of the preceding season on ordinary 

 partridge ground on February 2. How are they 

 faring in the bleak, wind-swept fields, covered often 

 for days together with snow, or adamant with frost ? 

 And who cares ? Perhaps the keeper probably he 

 does not ; for, obviously, so far as practical care is 

 shown, the master makes the man. At any rate, 

 I feel pretty sure that the men who have been 



