GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 203 
extract from the ‘Gentleman’s Recreation,’ previously 
quoted above in the chapter on Driving, for the 
knowledge shown by these old-time sportsmen and 
poachers of the use that may be made of the running 
rather than the flying instinct of the partridge, a 
point not half enough studied or utilised. 
This instinct may and should be largely taken 
advantage of in managing pheasants, but except in 
half-mooning I do not know that it is ever turned to 
account with partridges. 
The ubiquitous watchfulness necessary to a par- 
tridge-keeper must be employed against the setting of 
snares, which, as it can only be successfully done on 
banks or at the edges of fields where the birds pretty 
regularly dust themselves, ought to be easily detected 
and frustrated. Killing partridges by steel traps is 
hedges darkening the moon’s light, when the partridges will 
drive no farther, but instantly fly; the poachers, however, 
spring them in the evening with a spaniel, and mark the spot 
by a stick and piece of white paper ; the tunnel is. then set down 
on the spot where the birds jucked from, and to which they are 
certain to return, they thus readily find and drive them with a 
horse under the net. To prevent this, take some partridges 
from the outskirts of the manors, cut off the bearing claws, and 
turn them out ; they cannot then wz, and always spring ; if one 
bird springs, the rest of the covey are also sure to rise ; this 
plan is perhaps the best for defeating the havock made by the 
tunnel-net ; the poachers themselves term it taking an unfair 
advantage of them.’—Daniell’s Rural Sports, vol. ii. p. 407. 
