PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 59 
inrush of blood is great, a bird is suffocated before 
it has got many feet up. The slighter the escape 
of blood into the breath-passages, the longer is it 
before a bird dies, and, consequently, the greater 
the height to which it rises. It may be asked, 
Why does the towering or perpendicular flight 
make it easier for a bird to breathe than the 
horizontal? Because, I think, it retards the escape 
of blood into the windpipe and throat—and, thus, 
the bird's suffocation. 
The effect on any bird of a blow on the head 
which is not hard enough to kill it outright is to 
make the bird throw up its head, flap its wings, and 
depress its tail. Why this should be so I do not 
know, but I feel sure it explains why partridges 
imitate the towering performance when struck by a 
pellet in the head, though not in an immediately 
fatal part. It makes them depress their tails, so 
that, their wings still being in motion, they must 
go up. Those birds which occasionally fall like 
a stone, and remain for a time as dead, and then 
get up and fly off as if they never had been hit, 
probably have been struck in the beak, the effect 
being similar to that of a blow on the jaw of a 
man. Another deceptive bird is the one (so often 
seen when partridges are being walked up) that 
goes away with one or both legs hanging down, 
and often with rickety, zigzag flight. I wonder 
how often, when I have been setting off to search 
