68 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
properly covered, or that packs of birds may pass 
practically unchallenged between guns spread over 
a wider frontage, to go on and remain unbroken up. 
One good pack, by meeting the fire of two or three 
guns, is likely to be split up, and if not given time 
to re-pack will provide a good day’s sport and a 
respectable bag for shooters of ordinary skill. You 
must drive early enough if you would drive success- 
fully for a whole day over a small extent of ground, 
or over a comparatively large acreage if cut up by 
villages, or of ‘strippy,’ irregular outline. In the 
matter of date people will imitate Lord So-and-so, 
of five hundred brace a day fame, only to find their 
sport and their bag more inferior than ever to his. 
Besides, by driving early you can have short drives 
off stubble, sainfoin, and other material available 
and sufficient for holding birds before they get too 
strong. Later on it is all very well for sportsmen 
to grumble and even rave about long drives and 
long waits; you may have short drives and short 
waits, and no shooting to speak of all day long. 
‘Where are the birds ? is the question put to the 
unfortunate keeper after each short drive. If ever 
I hated anything it was to be asked where my 
partridges were after somebody else had arranged 
the drives. 
It may be suggested that the provision of two 
sets of beaters and competent men to manage them 
would allow the long drives necessary to success, 
