60 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
for such a bird, I have received the information 
that it cannot possibly run, since both its legs are 
broken. Fortunately, both for itself and the keeper 
who has to look for it, the bird, as a rule, falls dead 
—always, in my experience, when it gives a pre- 
liminary upward twist. But when it glides down, 
say, on the fringe of a hedge, there is nothing in 
the shape of broken legs to prevent it from running. 
The cause of the stilt-like hanging of leg or legs 
is a wound in the back which paralyzes, temporarily 
or otherwise, the nerves controlling the usual tucked- 
up position of the legs during flight. 
We all know the disappointment of losing a 
partridge from which has come the proverbial 
cloud of feathers, though positive that it could 
not have got more than just over the hedge. In 
fact it may have gone over the horizon. The 
fewer the feathers that come from a bird at 
sporting range, the more likely is it to have been 
hit in a fatal spot. The cloud of feathers is 
likely enough to be produced by shot ploughing 
through the mass of feathers above the tail. That 
is to say, you sometimes and I (often) have shot 
a bit too far behind a bird which was rising im- 
perceptibly. A few golden inches forwarder and 
the rising would not have mattered. When I have 
been out with good shots—which was a treat I 
did not get very often—I have found it profitable 
to watch birds going away, apparently after being 
