4 
ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS BY THE 
As in all other matters, so in those pertaining to the chase, it is 
only experts and those who have practical knowledge who can 
commit to canvas or to paper anything that is worthy of being 
handed down to posterity. A vast amount is written on these 
subjects that is misleading as well as ridiculous. I read in a 
newspaper once on the 1 st of September that that day was the feast 
of St. Partridge, and that in the stubble and turnip fields the “ crack 
of the rifle ” would be heard all around! All bullets have their 
billets, but if they found them in the heart of the partridge there 
would be but few specimens of that succulent dainty to grace our 
tables! Many a time and often have articles appeared in the daily 
journals characterizing the field sports of England as massacre, but 
if massacre it be, it is one which requires both practice and skill, 
and if the writers of such articles took post behind a hedge with a 
northerly gale blowing, during the sport of partridge-driving, which 
they dub as un-English and unsportsmanlike, I, for one, should not 
very strongly object to being the partridge! These and similar 
diatribes are born of ignorance and a maudlin sentimentalism, which 
one could hardly believe could be evoked by the discussion of a 
pastime which requires nerve, skill, combination of hand and eye, 
and experience, and the treatment of which had best be left to those 
who possess these qualifications. 
I should range over too wide a field were I to discuss the 
attributes and the habits of all such animals concerning which I 
may have a little practical knowledge. I purpose therefore making 
a few remarks concerning the partridge and the fox, two kinds of 
animals which have a closer connection than one of them at least 
would wish, but both of whom are the raison d'etre of our principal 
national sports; and the narration of some few incidents which 
have come under my personal observation may not be out of place. 
I am confident that I shall be in touch with my audience when 
I say that there is no purer or better method of passing one’s leisure 
hours than to ramble in this our lovely county of Hertfordshire, 
“far from the madding crowd,” and away from the busy hum of 
men, Nature one’s sole companion, and one’s heart filled with 
gratitude to Providence for the senses of sight and smell, gratified 
as they are in spring and summer at every step one takes. And so it 
was that one July morning I chanced to peer over a hedge not one 
hundred miles from here, when up sprang a hen partridge with her 
newly-hatched brood. After flying a short distance into the field 
she stopped and came back running on the ground with her wings 
