46 
THE CABINET OF NATURAL HISTORY, 
were unsuspicious and familiar— now they are cautious and 
exceedingly vigilant; formerl 3 r , they fed on open ground, 
could be seen by the road-side, or in the foot-path of the 
passenger — but now, every noise alarms them, and they 
glean their simple fare only in the tall grass and stubble, 
or among the bushes. A few shots at a covey of Partridges 
will put them more on the alert than the visitations of their 
natural enemies, and in this way the Sportsman destroys 
that state of domesticity in these birds which may be ob- 
servable on all those farms prohibited to the footsteps of 
the shooter. He drives them from open grounds into 
greater security against various other enemies; and while 
those birds, which have been fostered and protected in the 
covetousness of the farmer, fall an easy prey to the snares 
and traps abounding on such farms, the others are suspi- 
cious of every thing, and will avoid the most ingenious 
devices laid to entrap them; and by reason of their seek- 
ing constant shelter in better cover, they more readily 
escape the vigilance of hawks. 
Landholders are greatly mistaken, when they suppose 
that they afford sure protection to their Partridges by ex- 
excluding Sportsmen from visiting their grounds. Many 
of these will tell you, that “ they wish their birds pre- 
served, and do not wish you to shoot them.” And yet 
if you will visit the nooks and corners of their fields and 
thickets, you will find an abundance of traps and snares. 
Their prohibition does not, therefore, arise from any re- 
spect to the welfare of the birds, so much as to gratify 
their avaricious dispositions, by catching the birds them- 
selves, and vending them in market. Their mode of 
catching these birds, too, is often attended with much 
cruelty. The writer has often, in his rambles, found traps 
and snoods, containing birds-; and in several instances, when 
confined in the former, they appeared in a half-starved 
condition; and in the latter, the poor prisoners, half 
choked, had been dangling by the neck for days. But so 
long as avarice is the ruling principle of these men, it is 
all in vain to talk of preserving game on farms adjacent to 
any good market. 
It is much to be regretted that the price of Partridges 
is so high. Fifty cents a pair can be readily obtained for 
them, at this time, in the Philadelphia market; and while 
such inducements are held out to covetous farmers and 
others to destroy Partridges, it is not to be wondered at, 
that Sportsmen should be forbidden to visit places where 
these birds are found. If farmers sincerely wish to 
have a due proportion of these truly interesting birds at all 
times on their plantations, let them first destroy all the 
snares and traps about them, and then drive poachers, or 
gunners, from their premises, especially during that pe- 
riod when the earth is covered with snow. The latter 
persons will oftentimes destroy an entire covey of Part- 
ridges at a single shot; and, if even two or three should 
escape the destructive fire, they will more than likely pe- 
rish by the severity of the weather, for want of sufficient 
company to keep them warm at night, as it is known, by 
their manner of roosting, they impart equal warmth to 
each other. During the first snows of the season, I have 
known some reckless gunners to follow the trail of Part- 
ridges along hedge-rows, until the birds would huddle 
together in a space not eighteen inches in diameter, when, 
with a deadly fire, they would kill two-thirds of their 
number. And on one occasion, I knew a man, after he 
had thus succeeded in getting a covey huddled up, to fire 
on them, and on going up, finding one bird escaped, and 
thirteen dead, he expressed great dissatisfaction that he 
did not get the whole of them. 
I think, then, it is by no means the interest of farmers 
to exclude Sportsmen from shooting on their grounds, if 
visited by them in moderation. A Sportsman may be 
known by his dogs, manner of hunting, and the seasons he 
appropriates to that amusement. No Sportsman will hunt 
in the snow, and all others gunning on Partridge grounds, 
at that time, should be driven off. 
I have strictly observed, for some years, that protected 
grounds abound with fewer Partridges than those parts 
hunted over season after season by Sportsmen, and sim- 
ply for the reason before stated, that their half-domesticity 
renders them an easy prey to their enemies. I have had 
my favourite districts, within a short distance to a day’s 
ride of Philadelphia; over these I have hunted successfully 
every year for a number of years; and every succeeding 
season brought along with it the same plenitude of birds. 
Two spots, one within seven, and the other forty miles of 
this city, have been my favourites. These I have visited, 
the former nearly every week during the sporting season; 
and the latter, every day or two for several weeks at a 
time. On the first, (sometimes with a companion,) I have 
invariably bagged from fifteen to forty birds, and on one 
occasion sixty ! Sixty Partridges, or fully four coveys, off 
of one district, in a single hunt; and yet the next season, the 
number of birds seemed undiminished. On the latter 
ground, I have even been more successful, from which I 
have never bagged less than twenty, and from that num- 
ber up to forty-five birds; perhaps the general average 
would be twenty-five, and I seldom commenced my 
shooting season until the 15th of October. With this 
continued success, I have never found the number of birds 
less on the succeeding season, until the inclemency of the 
weather, a few winters ago, nearly depopulated all of the 
middle and northern states of Partridges. 
I think most Sportsmen will agree with me in these ob- 
