236 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
About 500 yards from the main covert are four™ 
smaller coverts, constituting a larger square, and the 
intervening space is sown with crops suitable for the 
feeding and harbour of the birds. 
A very early start is made, and the drivers, 
consisting of 200 or 300 men and boys, who move 
with great rapidity, frequently running for long spells, 
are posted by the time the shooting-party arrive at the 
stands. At a given signal they start the first drive 
of the beat, embracing one quarter, lying between 
two of the roads, advancing in a gradually closing 
half-moon right up to the guns. 
There are usually four drives in the day, including 
the four quarters, the first occupying half-an-hour, 
the remaining three two hours each, the men having 
for these drives to fall back and get round the fresh 
quarter of the ground. As will be imagined, the birds, 
disturbed from such an extent of land, approach 
the guns from all sides, and even from behind, having 
circled over the central covert, or swung away from 
one end of the long line of guns, and the utmost 
variety of shots is thus obtained. 
Some of my English friends who have been the 
guests of Baron de Hirsch have told me that nothing 
in the way of English partridge-driving can give any 
notion of the exciting nature of these drives, immense 
