PARTRIDGES IN THE FIELDS 15 
that serve to enhance the security of their camping 
ground. Out in the open meadow the slightest noise 
is heard readily enough. Thus the chance of a fox 
or any other wild animal stealing upon them unawares 
is reduced to a minimum. Not only is the preter- 
natural intuition of danger peculiar to the old male 
bird of a covey constantly exercised, but each and 
every individual is on the alert at the slightest 
warning, and their risk is thus considerably reduced. 
Of course there are careful observers up and down 
the country who declare that the partridge has 
fallen upon hard times. They complain dolefully 
enough that wire fencing is in the ascendent, and 
that the old-fashioned hedges which gave good covér 
to the birds in the nesting-time have been grubbed 
up in many instances. They point mournfully to the 
general adoption of newfangled methods of farming, 
and lament the substitution of the mowing-machine 
for the scythe. In their eyes there was more merit 
in a sickle than in the latest and most completely 
furnished reaping-machine. The primitive imple- 
ments of husbandry that satisfied farmers of the old 
" school are good enough, they argue, for all reasonable 
requirements at the present day. ‘Fifty years ago 
the use of the scythe was partially, of the reaping- 
machine wholly, unknown. It is true that where 
