PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 59 



inrush of blood is great, a bird is suffocated before 

 it has got many feet up. The slighter the escape 

 of blood into the breath-passages, the longer is it 

 before a bird dies, and, consequently, the greater 

 the height to which it rises. It may be asked, 

 Why does the towering or perpendicular flight 

 make it easier for a bird to breathe than the 

 horizontal ? Because, I think, it retards the escape 

 of blood into the windpipe and throat and, thus, 

 the bird's suffocation. 



The effect on any bird of a blow on the head 

 which is not hard enough to kill it outright is to 

 make the bird throw up its head, flap its wings, and 

 depress its tail. Why this should be so I do not 

 know, but I feel sure it explains why partridges 

 imitate the towering performance when struck by a 

 pellet in the head, though not in an immediately 

 fatal part. It makes them depress their tails, so 

 that, their wings still being in motion, they must 

 go up. Those birds which occasionally fall like 

 a stone, and remain for a time as dead, and then 

 get up and fly off as if they never had been hit, 

 probably have been struck in the beak, the effect 

 being similar to that of a blow on the jaw of a 

 man. Another deceptive bird is the one (so often 

 seen when partridges are being walked up) that 

 goes away with one or both legs hanging down, 

 and often with rickety, zigzag flight. I wonder 

 how often, when I have been setting off to search 



