162 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
of you, and the turnips are high and thick, the whole 
organisation usually seems to collapse, the line gets 
into confusion, the dogs run too far ahead, and 
put up fresh birds out of range, or the pause js sé 
long that all the broken birds in front of you run 
gradually to the end, and then get up in a bunch 
without much execution being done among them. 
Now observe how your dog-breaker, assisted by 
the beaters, trained to mark the fall of the birds and 
plant sticks, would simplify all this. You would send 
him first for those that fell behind the line, which he 
would have marked himself. While he was picking 
up these, the line would advance slowly to where the 
fallen birds are in front, and plant the sticks wherever 
they cannot at once see and pick them up. If, as is 
likely, more rise and are killed as you advance, they 
must be marked as well as possible in the same way. 
The dog-man will have by this time retrieved what 
fell behind, and will be following close, and seeking 
wherever sticks are planted. If he comes to the mark 
of a bird that is a runner, he should leave it till he has 
gathered all the dead ones, knowing that it must either 
have run forward, or to one side, on to fresh ground ; 
the line meanwhile advancing to the end. If there 
is another beat to be taken in the same field, and the 
runner has not yet been found, he will be on the fresh 
