5982 



Birds 



previously flushed ; in the latter, as far as my memory serves me, it 

 was most generally after a previous disturbance and flight of the 

 covey, and very probably after the death, at the previous rise, of the 

 old bird or birds. They usually rise first {giving a signal just as they 

 rise), and, from the fact of being first on the wing, are most frequently 

 first fired at: indeed in sporting books young shooters are told that if 

 they can succeed in killing the old bird or birds at first, they will find 

 it much easier to get shots at the remainder of the covey; and I have 

 no doubt that this well-founded piece of advice owes its reason to the 

 circumstance that the covey, having lost its director, whom I believe 

 originally to be the hen bird, is thenceforward, during that day at 

 least, without government or organization or concert; the young 

 birds, inexperienced and terrified, have no resource in themselves, and 

 w^aiting, after a purposeless run of a few yards, for the accustomed 

 signal for flight, lie till they are trodden on or perhaps caught by the 

 dog or its master's hand. In fact, I believe that the whole movements 

 of the covey are directed mainly by voice. I have heard the low 

 clucking of the parent bird, as she was moving about with her chicks 

 in the standing corn, continued, with short intermissions, as long as I 

 remained within hearing ; I have heard the louder clucking, above 

 noticed, when they are on the move to or from their feeding-ground, 

 or when wounded ; I have heard a low purring sound when I have 

 come upon a covey at bask, or at rest during the midday hours, and 

 before they had taken alarm from my presence ; and all this quite in- 

 dependently of the various calls which the most inattentive observer 

 is acquainted with. In few words, they could not act with such con- 

 cert as they do without very intelligible signals and a recognised 

 authority to give them ; and it is quite worth notice that the covey 

 out of which you kill both old birds, and some of the scattered, disor- 

 ganized young members, to day, will be in the course of another day 

 or two reorganized and reoflicered, — will rise before your dog as one 

 bird, — and behave just as if it were still under the guidance of the 

 director or directors originally given by Nature. 



To pass to another subject. A few months since there was a good 

 deal of ink shed, in a certain sporting Weekly, on the supposed power 

 of retention of scent alleged to be possessed by some game birds, and 

 especially by a partridge assumed and maintained by some to be al- 

 most more than a variety of the common partridge. The arguments 

 in favour of both assumptions seemed to me most lame and incon- 

 clusive. The supposed variety of partridge, described as exchisively 

 frequenting or inhabiting the moors (if I remember right, particularly 



