ORIGINAL SKETCHES OF BRITISH BIRDS. 15 



securing a shot was to lie in ambush, and have it driven towards 

 me. For half an hour it led us a pretty dance, and we repeatedly 

 had to change our tactics ; and, though I felt I did not want to 

 set eyes on another Partridge until I had " bagged " my own 

 particular bird, I must confess to feeling considerable qualms of 

 conscience all the time as to what the rest of the "guns " would 

 think of my desertion and apparent wild-goose — alias, white 

 blackbird — chase. However, the end occasionally justifies the 

 means, as it did in this instance ; for, just as I was on the point 

 of abandoning the pursuit as hopeless, the bird proving as 

 averse to being driven as stalked, I chanced a snap-shot at what 

 at the moment of firing I thought quite a prohibitive range, and 

 down it came, — a prodigious fluke, yes, I freely admit, — a stray 

 corn having severed its pinion-bone, and probably not another 

 gone near it. A more beautiful bird of the kind I have never 

 seen, and, though a similar specimen in the South Kensington 

 Museum runs it hard, I prefer the one I was lucky enough to kill 

 at Hinton St. George. 



It is possible that someone or other will be found to blame 

 me for what I have recorded in the light rather of a triumph — I 

 deemed it one on the spur of the moment ; but, though highly 

 disapproving of the indiscriminate and senseless slaughter of 

 rare species that might breed in greater numbers with us if left 

 unmolested, I do not see that the capture of an abnormal-coloured 

 Blackbird deserves reprobation, and especially when it was a 

 marked bird, and the hand of almost every dweller in the district 

 was against it. Indeed, considering the persecution it underwent, 

 the wonder to me is that it managed to escape its doom for such 

 a lengthened period. Had it been one of a pair of Golden 

 Orioles nesting in the spring of the year in Kent, let us say, my 

 action would have been most properly denounced as reprehensible 

 in the highest degree. It is not after this manner, I have pre- 

 sence of mind enough to know, that the cause of Natural History 

 is best aided. However, it is far from my intention to offer an 

 elaborate apology for what I did, and should probably do again 

 to-morrow if I had the opportunity ; " collectors never know 

 remorse, and seldom feel regret," and I am quite sure all my 

 plunderings have not done one ten-thousandth part of the damage 

 which a contrary wind inflicts at migration time. 



