138 How I Became a Sportsmax. 



early put me up to marking down partridges. 

 Men not accustomed 'to it are too apt to say 

 they are down long before they are, when they 

 see them go near the ground ; the eye should 

 never be taken off them until that peculiar 

 flapping of the wings is seen which they make 

 in settling. You see them go over a fence, and 

 they are apparently going to settle ; but if you 

 do not see the flapping or poising the body for 

 an instant, don't fancy they are down if you 

 lose sight of them, but carry your eye forward, 

 and most probably you will see them going 

 over the next fence. Partridges take very long 

 flights when they get strong, and late in the 

 season, when they are best worth shooting ; 

 they also very often, when they are wild, run a 

 good way after alighting, and I have always 

 found it repay for the time and trouble taken 

 in doing it, to go some way ahead of them, by 

 going quietly under the hedges, or any way 

 you can get there without disturbing fresh 

 ground, and come back upon them. It out- 

 manoeuvres their tactics, as in all probability, if 

 you followed them, they would be most likely 

 either to get up before you got to them, or else 

 run on into the next field, and then rise again. 



