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can assure you that as fine a cock bird as ever wore the bay horse-shoe fell to the lot of a lazy sportsman, who lingered on a stile in a bad scenting day. A shot not far off was heard, and, in a few seconds, the partridge we have specified fell within a few yards of him. The partridge had been struck by a hawk, who, on sight of the gunner, mounted with his prey, and, in his flight, received the contents of the sportsman's gun, which brought both to the ground together the shooter not appearing, the stil-ish sportsman bore off both birds.

Shooting in the after part of the day is good practice. When coveys have been pursued in the morning, they should be allowed some respite. You, brother sportsman, require it for yourself; spare it also to the poor birds, who, thus eternally hunted out, will seek a new locality, and frustrate your views; pursue them but fairly, and they will yield you amusement for the whole season: remember, there is a wide difference between the fair shooting of game, and destroying it by wholesale. After-dinner shooting is often very productive of sport, and, when pursued by the humane and fair sportsman, is much to be recommended. It is not the use of the gun, but the abuse of it, that we would condemn. We are, however, not so set against morning shooting as Colonel Hawker, who thinks it almost waste of time. Perhaps the gallant colonel courts the morning pillow; but, we think, not even his precepts, much as they are respected, will keep the ardent sportsman out from the field in the mornings of September and October. He, however, instances a fact, which tells in favour of his opinion, which is, that a sportsman of his acquaintance killed twenty-three brace of birds in one day, three only of the number being killed before nine o'clock; and he adds, that the sportsman he alludes to, was himself of opinion that he should have killed at least seven brace more, had he, instead of starting at daylight, waited until half-past seven or eight o'clock. (See p. 155, seventh edition.) The colonel, in common with every good judge of the matter, is favourable to having good markers; and three such, he observes, are not too many, if the country be open and the company numerous. He, likewise, would have the birds dispersed, and then the dogs headed, by taking an extensive circle. Try,' he says, 'the hills first, and drive the birds into the vales to kill them.' The colonel has quite gained our suffrages by the benefits which he says are likely to arise from trying the fallows on a cold, raw day. On such a day, in Essex, Hertfordshire, and Northumberland, the principal scenes of our sporting adventures, we always turned our steps to them, and we never recollect having reason to repent it. When we were in Ireland we fell in with two sportsmen, not very crack; they, however, did us the honour of requesting our company to a turn among the spent stubbles and the potato-grounds. We represented the fallows as the most likely haunt for birds at that time of day, and to them we directed our steps. Nor shall we ever forget how soon after we entered the field we could plainly discover, by the glistening of the melting moisture of the hoar frost, the forms of three or four birds crouched among the clods. In vain we pleaded the propriety of springing them. No, these gents would not lose an opportunity so seldom gained; both fired, and both, to our great delight, missed his bird as it lay but be it observed that unfair shooting is not the true Irish character, and our friends were young.

"A preponderance in the number of cock birds is supposed to occur in the breedings of each season, in consequence of which the hen partridge is so tormented by a number of males, that she drops one egg in one place and one in another, until there remains for her but one cock and no nest. The best mode,' we are told, to destroy the superabundance of cocks, is, during the first three weeks of the season, to net the covey, and destroy all the old cocks, leaving as many young ones as hens, or even one less; for it is certainly better that the hen should look for the cock (which she, undoubtedly, will find), than a number of cocks for a hen. It should be recollected that, where old birds are left, they will, at the pairing season, drive off the young ones, and prevent their breeding; for, let any sportsman declare if ever, on finding a single brace of partridges in the shooting season that have not bred, and are termed by

sportsmen a gelt pair, he has found a covey near the same place where he found them; which can be only accounted for by the old birds driving the young ones from the ground, and preventing their breeding there. It is, therefore, a wrong notion, that some birds should not be killed every year; and those gentlemen who have manors will find, by not allowing some to be killed, that, in a short time, their grounds will be entirely destitute of game. The late Earl of Kingston had a great quantity of grouse on his mountains, in Ireland, before they were preserved; but he thought, by leaving them quiet for a couple of seasons, that he should have had a much greater abundance: he, therefore, did not allow a shot to be fired on those mountains for two seasons, and it is well known they were carefully preserved during the whole time. On collecting, however, a large party, the third season, and going out to grouse, many of the gentlemen who had been in the habit of shooting there, prior to its being preserved, were surprised to find a great scarcity; the reason of which was, certainly, that the old birds drove the young ones off; and all the mountains adjoining the Earl of Kingston's were swarming with game, although they had not been preserved. It is the same with partridges; the late Colonel Hyde, of Castle Hyde, county of Cork, Ireland, who wished much to increase the breed of them on his grounds, pursued the following plan, which proved successful :-His gamekeeper, in the early part of the season, netted a number of birds, reserving all the young ones, with some old hens; and, after destroying all the old cocks, he turned the young birds into a large place he had built purposely for them, and let them go again on the 1st of February following; and he had, in consequence, a great abundance about him. If, therefore, this method answered so well, it would certainly be worth any gentleman's while to adopt the same plan. There are many sportsmen who have so keen an eye as to be able to ascertain, when the partridges take wing, the difference between a cock and a hen; if so, it is to be wished every sportsman would kill the cock in preference to the hen, and then the breed of partridges would be greatly increased throughout the kingdom. (Shooting Directory,' p. 102.) We presume the following stratagem, related by Mr. Daniel, of a careful mother among these birds, as being in a locality known to both him and ourselves, is, without doubt, entitled to our full credence, and is worthy of notice on account of its interest:- Upon the farm of Lion Hall, in Essex, belonging to Colonel Hawker, 1788, the following extraordinary incident of a partridge depositing her eggs was known to many persons. This bird chose the top of an oak pollard to build her nest; and this tree, too, had one end of the bars of a stile, where there was a footpath, fastened into it; and by the passengers going over the stile before she sat close, she was disturbed and first discovered. The farmer, whose name was Bell, apprized Mr. Daniel of the circumstance, which he laughed at, as being the report of his workmen, and saying that it was only a wood-pigeon they had mistaken for a partridge; but Master Bell, who had killed some hundreds of partridges, so positively affirmed his having beheld the bird upon the nest on the tree, and also,, at another time, having told the eggs, to the number of sixteen, that Mr. Daniel was persuaded to ride to the spot, where the partridge was seen sitting in a few days she hatched the sixteen eggs; and her brood, scrambling down the short and rough boughs which grew out all around from the trunk of the tree, reached the ground in safety.' Partridges are subject to the same mutations of clothing as other birds; they have been seen entirely white. A covey of nine partridges,' this same author tells us, 'were bred upon a farm of the Hon J. Olmius, at Sandon, in Essex, four of which were pure white, and three of the others were mottled. In 1804 a partridge was killed by Mr. B. Dudley's keeper, that had half the longest feathers in each wing of a milk white, and the skin of the centre claw of both feet was of the same colour. In 1796, at South Cave,' he also informs us, that, at Mr. Barnard's, near Market Weighton, was a covey of eight partridges; four of them were the most beautiful clear white, three were pied; the eighth bird escaped from under the net, by which the other seven were secured; they

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were kept alive in the mew, and considered as great curiosities.' (Rural Sports,' vol. iii. p. 75-80.) We have already observed, that it is sometimes fair to net partridges, that we may select the cocks, whose average increase is about one-third beyond the number of hen birds. This disparity, which, we believe, we have already noticed, is best kept down by tunnelling them, that is, by taking them in what is called a tunnel net, and then destroying the superabundance, so as to make the number of cocks and hens equal. We would also embrace this opportunity of aiding Mr. Thornhill in his laudable endeavours to increase the breed of partridges, by stating that where circumstances occur to destroy a hen partridge when incubating, such as by her being trodden on, rolled over, or cut by the mowers, that the eggs should be immediately placed under a sitting hen, where they will be assuredly hatched, provided that care be taken, when the hatch takes place, to alternately moisten and dry the egg-shell with warm water, not allowing more than half a minute for each process. This moistening is requisite to dissolve the gluing effects of the greater heat of the body of the hen of the barn-door fowl over that of the hen partridge, which is such, in most cases, as to stick the feathers of the young partridge to the shell so tightly as to prevent its liberation, unless assisted by such a careful moistening of the shell as shall dissolve the adhesive attachment without injuring the bird.

"Grass-bred birds,-do they require any particular method of pursuit? We reply, very little; for as soon as the young ones can fly they follow the mother to the field, who, until they were able to do this, had fed them with ants' eggs and insects, by which they gain strength to fly, perhaps greater even than, at their early state, they could accumulate from grain. A covey of birds shot into a very few times teaches them, instinctively, to disperse for safety; but, at first, they reassemble very quickly, and the call that is made is easy to be heard, and the flight, also, to be distinctly seen in a level country. After some time, however, when the birds have been much pursued, they do not assemble so quickly, but still they communicate; and, if we mistake not, we ourselves are the first who have remarked on this call of communication, as being one essentially different from that of the call, or juck, to unite the disgregated covey. The call of communication is first made in an under tone; it has nothing sharp in it; but if the sportsman has a good ear, and is within a suitable distance, but concealed from observation, he will find it is not given in vain, but will be responded to by the young birds in a tone soft and something like the call made by the parents. That it is a call of communication only, as 'how be ye?' 'where are ye?' is evident; for we do not remember, in any one instance, its being followed by a junction or flight of the birds. We would recommend this to the sportsman's particular notice, not only as a curious fact in the natural history of this bird, which we think it will prove to be, but likewise as furnishing a practical notice that may be turned to account.

"The domesticity of the partridge is not great, and we are sorry that we cannot say anything favourable of this high-prized bird in this respect. Partridges reared under a hen even, will not bear strict confinement; however at first they may seem to thrive and to own the foster-mother that feeds them, they gradually become wild, and, eventually, altogether estrange themselves from her who had seemed to have been regarded by them as their protector. If, in such a case, they are attempted to be permanently retained, we believe they one and all invariably die. One reared by the Rev. Mr. Bird, we are, however, told of, which, long after its full growth, though not entirely domesticated, would yet attend at the parlour window to receive its breakfast, and would also, occasionally, come within doors, and in cold weather it has been seen to stretch itself out on the hearth to collect the warmth by basking.

"Broken coveys yield the best sport. While the young birds have the old ones with them, they are, as the gamester would say, 'up to every move on the board.' Deprived of them they are truly discomfited, and do not know how to act. It is now that the well-practised sportsman, with steady dogs, ferrets them out, as we might say, from places likely, and places unlikely; for

we know hardly one, except it be within a stopped bottle, that a stray bird may not be driven into when urged by fear to seek for safety. Search, therefore, brother sportsman, closely, and you will pick up many a stray shot, the very exertion of doing which, when attended with success, will make the bird doubly prized. How elated is Ponto when a missed bird is recovered; and how well he knows when you are in pursuit of a particular one, and how eagerly he tries to further your views, by devices extra-instinctive; indeed, they are rational. We have hitherto advanced no recommendation on the subject of the gun, whether it should be a double or a single one. Unless the shooter is sufficiently an adept to bring down a bird with each barrel, he may, with much propriety, avoid the trouble, fatigue, and risk attending two barrels. The risk, however, is now much reduced by the safety-stop. If the smoke does not prevent the shooter with the double gun, we would advise him not to take it down; but, merely altering his point, to take his second shot. As many as eight and ten successive double shots have been fired, without a miss or a mishap. Our own plan was, when we went out for partridge-shooting on our own ground, to use a single gun only, because we had the means, on our own manor, of keeping off intruders; and, as sometimes our walk was extended to a considerable distance beyond the limits of our own manor, into other friends' grounds, both for ease to our arms and for decency of appearance; for double guns were, thirty years ago, regarded rather as a poaching than as a fair sporting article. We repeat, we then carried a single gun only, and a single one we would recommend to the steady shooter who can go out whenever he lists. He will, with this, not be remarked on as a murderer, but will receive two invitations for one to shoot on other grounds than his own: but, be it observed, this remark is intended for the more humble gunner, and not for the élite.

"Should any inquiry be made as to the size of the shot employed in partridge shooting, we would reply, that as the season advances, the size of the shot should advance also. Nos. 5 and 6, if the shooter has lost the unnecessary prejudice against mixed shot, will answer his purpose for the first fortnight: he may, after this, use No. 5 only, or Nos. 4 and 5; and in October, he may (if he shoots over a very open country, where long flights are taken), with propriety, charge with No. 3. These hints are general only; but we know them to be substantially correct, allowance being made according to the size of the gun, whether single or double."

Part VIII. relates to fishing: it opens thus,-" Man, we believe, to have been first frugivorous, then carnivorous, and, next, piscivorous, which left him what he now is, omnivorous." This beginning, we are not ashamed to confess, fairly frightened us out of our wits. The literary epidemic of the day has been ichthyology in sport, which, in fact, has been all but the death of us. Since our excellent friend Hofland, some eighteen months ago, published his "Angler's Manual" (which ought to be in every angler's hand), enough has been written about rods, lines, landing-nets, flies, hooks, floats, baits, minnows, trolling, sniggling, and such like piscicidal deceits, that it is no small miracle to see a remnant of the scaly populace left in the flesh, or, rather, in the fish. Unless a speedy relaxation of the furor for compassing the death of the dwellers in the water under the earth" occur, we shall live to see red-herrings sought, regardless of expense, for the collections of the virtuosi. Little more than a twelvemonth since, a gentleman offered for the use of this periodical, a work on fly-fishing, in seven hundred folios. "Think of that, Master Forde!" From that hour we never passed a fishmonger's window without a sigh, to reflect how soon his occupation" might be "gone."

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Let us do our devoir, then, by Mr. Blaine, without following him

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ab ovo usque ad malum (by the way, that sentence, by a simple verbal alteration, would come pat to the purpose), and offer our testimony of applause to his admirable article on fishing, although his commencing with the creation did " horribly shake our dispositions" as we entered upon its perusal. Nothing can be more ample, or more excellent; and embellished, as it is, with a perfect gallery of illustrations, it forms, in itself, a library for the fisherman. A short paper, on Cock-fighting (which we did not read) brings us to the last division of the volume, a chapter on "BOXING," quaintly enough included among rural sports. Woe is us! departed are the days when

"All the world were tucking up their fingers for a fight."

Instead of " nothing in their hands but their fists," men now go about with double-bladed knives in their pockets, and think no more of letting daylight into an abdomen than into an apple tart. If we had room, we could indite such good matter anent the morale of " Boxiana," as would induce any home-secretary, having brains, to recommend that royal prizes should be as generally given for contests in the ring, as on the turf. But we are at the end of our paper; and we secure the nook that remains to discharge a most grateful duty, by declaring that Mr. Blaine has helped us to a sporting feast, both in quantity and quality, far surpassing any of which it has yet been our fortune to partake.

WILD TURKEY SHOOTING.

THE discovery of America, by Columbus, resulted, among other great events, in the addition of the Turkey to the table of the poor man and the epicure, and in adding to the list of game the most remarkable bird that presents itself to the notice of the sportsman. The Wild Turkey stands entirely alone, altogether unrivalled; and is, unquestionably, more American than anything else of which we can boast. The Americans are charged with being rather complacent when they touch upon their peculiar advantages, and are apt to claim the honour of being a little the tallest young people that ever breathed. They do believe, we have no doubt, that they have rivers the longest, mountains that stick up the highest, valleys that squat the lowest, horses that run the fastest, politicians that talk the loudest, and girls that are the prettiest, of any other in creation. But the Englishman, Frenchman, or any other European, have all these things in kind; and they will vaunt about the Thames, the Seine, and the like, and thereby grow very self-conceited and satisfied; but they knock under when you mention the Wild Turkey, and willingly admit that America is a great country indeed, Franklin knew all this; and, with a wisdom that eclipsed himself, wished to have this bird of birds introduced upon our national emblem, instead of the Eagle. The idea was enough to have immortalized him, if he had not been a philosopher, or a modern Ajax, defying the lightning.

The Eagle, after all, is no great shakes of a bird, if we look into Audubon for its history; being own cousin to the Turkey Buzzard; and the most respectable of the family are fish-thieves, and the

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