114 CHAPTER XVII. 



The plan worked well enough and we got some birds, but I recall very 

 distinctly a drainage ditch with a barbed wire fence by its side and 

 crossed by another, which interposed during the progress of this ad- 

 vance. Some of the guns were able to swing over by the wires ; some 

 made it by a long running jump; but when I approached, eyeing the two 

 feet or more of water with considerable disfavor, partridges were get- 

 ting up momentarily and coming toward us. I could not delay the line 

 and I had to cross, so I waded in and out, taking two large, capacious 

 hunting boots full of very cold water with me. 



After that we swung along in line, guns and beaters together, to a 

 piece of waste land which had been allowed to grow up to high grass. 

 There were many partridges here and some pheasants ; but few got 

 away. The percentage of hits of flushed birds as against the percent- 

 age of hits made on driven birds works out about the same every time. 

 Very few flushed birds escape. If you get half of the driven birds you 

 are doing well. 



There were a great many partridges here. Quite as large a number 

 as I saw in Norfolk. We came finally to a famous old patch of gorse 

 which had been left as a nesting and hiding place for the birds. Here 

 they were in force. We drove this patch with good success, then 

 drove a turnip field not far away and the birds made for the patch, 

 then we drove it again. In all, I think four drives were made through 

 this one small tract of ground, each yielding plentitude of birds. 



Then we swung out over the fields further on and pursued the tactics 

 previously described in the Norfolk shooting. That is, the guns were 

 stationed along one side of a field in a covered position and the beaters 

 attempted to put the birds over or near to them. We had a good bag 

 that night; about 300 birds, I think, and motored back to the Castle, 

 satisfied with the sport, if not entirely content as individuals I speak 

 for myself alone with the quality of our shooting. 



That night the party broke up, and the next morning I started for 

 England and home. So this is the end of my Scotch and English shoot- 

 ing experiences in the year 1911. I have tried to tell of them in such a 

 way as to pass on to you some of the pleasure which they afforded me. 



If I have succeeded in doing that I am satisfied, because the pleasure 

 which I had was so great that no one else could have any of it without 

 a distinct addition to the sum total of human happiness. So endeth 

 stories of some shoots or the chronicles of a gratified gunner. 



