146 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
CHAPTER IV 
WALKING UP 
Unper this head we must include all that there is 
to be said, and I fear that can be very little in these 
days, about shooting partridges over dogs. The 
almost complete abandonment of the pointer and 
setter on the manors and fields of England was pri- 
marily due to the disappearance of the old-fashioned 
stubble. General cleaning of lands, clearing out of 
ditches, and trimming down of the old hedgerows to 
the level of the modern fence, which shelters neither 
bird, beast, nor crop, have swept away the necessity 
for them on large estates. In former days the par- 
tridges had to be found, now you can see them in 
most counties three fields off from the main road. It 
is idle to say we are unsportsmanlike because we do 
not employ dogs, whose vocation it is to detect with 
their noses what we cannot see with our eyes, for 
hunting game which exists in such large quantities 
