DRIVING 143 
while so long as each claim is made honestly, the 
collective amount is what should be found in the bag. 
I remember once persuading my host, a man generous 
and easy-going to a fault, to let me do this, though it 
had never been the custom at his place. The tally 
was kept—we were all well used to driving and scoring 
—and the claims were undoubtedly genuine. At 
luncheon-time the bag returned was eighteen brace 
of partridges short of our claim. The keeper, a very 
good man, was sent for and told to look closely to the 
matter. At the end of the day eleven brace out of 
the missing eighteen had been recovered, and the bag 
for the afternoon tallied exactly with our claim. Little 
heaps of birds, forgotten or missed over by the collector 
with the cart, will sometimes be left to rot on the 
ground, unless some sort of score is kept. Everything 
possible should be done to pick up or kill wounded 
birds after the drive, provided always that in hunting 
you do not go far enough to disturb the ground of 
the next drive. This is an unpardonable crime. By 
shooting birds which rise as you walk from drive to 
drive, I think you do more good than harm, for they 
are of no use where they are, and in most cases are 
slightly pricked; but there should be no firing 
or noise of any kind as you get close to the fence 
where you are to drive. If the fence be scanty, 
