PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 57 
We were having no shooting-parties just then, so 
he was allowed, much against my inclination, to 
fool about by himself when and where he liked. 
One morning, when I was with some hand-reared 
pheasants in a wood, beyond which was a large 
piece of roots, I heard an occasional bang-bang. 
This was enough to tell me that the boy was on 
the war-path. As I feared they would, the bang- 
bangs became much nearer and much more frequent, 
interspersed with tremendous yelling on the part 
of the boy, and yapping on the part of his wild 
spaniel, As the uproar continued for some time, 
and I knew that a couple of minutes of it must have 
caused most of the partridges to clear out, I began 
to have suspicions. To have gone to the edge of 
the wood and watched the performance would have 
been easy. But it was not necessary. There was 
a frequent swish of wings as my pheasants returned 
to covert. At the next feed there were to be seen 
some that crawled, some that hopped, and some 
that drooped a wing. Luckily that boy returned 
to school in the evening, but not before he came 
with great glee to tell me he had bagged so many 
partridges. I asked if they all were partridges, 
and he confessed there was some doubt about—one. 
That was all the satisfaction I got. 
There is no doubt that the fewer the partridges, 
the better they lie. This bears out my surmise that 
the increasing wildness of partridges must be 
