SEPTEMBER. 



♦ 



PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. 



By Oswald Crawfurd. 



No kind of sport has so changed with the times as Partridge 

 shooting. Our forefathers shot them over dogs, and so far as 

 sport is concerned, it is perhaps a pity that we have gone so far as 

 we have in abandoning this old and delightful system of shooting ; 

 but, so far as the bag is concerned, the modern way is far the more 

 profitable. 



Why have things so changed, or, as some will have it, so degener- 

 ated ? Some say it is because the French Partridge — the "Red- 

 leg,'' introduced into this country from the Continent about 1750 — 

 has been mustering and breeding in countless multitudes ever since. 

 The " Frenchman " runs before the dog, and ruins the staunchness 

 of the best trained pointer, getting up out of shot — and, to a quicker 

 tempered generation than our own, in the most damn-provoking 

 manner conceivable ; but shooting over dogs is obsolete in counties 

 where the Red-leg has hardly penetrated. It can hardly be the 

 Red-leg, then, that has done away with the dog. Perhaps the drill 

 cultivation that allows the bird to run comfortably along a covered- 

 way of turnip or mangold leaves for 30 or 40 yards before he rises, 

 and so to puzzle the pointing dog, has helped in the innovation. 



