PARTRIDGE SHOOTING.
Concluded.
Unless there be continual rain, or it be the depth of winter, birds will visit their basking place some time in the course of the day, whether the sun shine or not. The basking place is generally, but not invariably, on the sunny side of the hedge. Birds may be most easily approached in fine weather. All kinds of birds lie better in small enclosures than in large ones, that is, when the cover in each is alike. It need scarcely be added, that the more bushy the brambles, or the higher the grass the more closely will lie the game.
A person who knows how to walk up to a bird will obtain more shots than one who does not, especially in windy weather. Birds will not only allow the shooter to approach nearer to them when he faces the wind, but they present on rising, a fairer mark.
When the legs of a bird fired at fall, it is almost a certain proof that it is struck in a vital part. A bird so struck should be narrowly watched, when, in most instances, it will be seen, after flying about a hundred yards if a grouse, or fifty yards if a partridge, to tower or spire in the air, and fall down dead. When only one leg falls, the bird should be watched, but in the latter case, it generally happens that the leg or thigh only has been struck. Any bird that flinches, on being fired at, or whose feathers are in the least disordered, should be marked down, and followed. Grouse more frequently fly away wounded than partridges. Grouse are often recovered several hundred yards from the gun.
Until November or December, young grouse, black-game, partridges, and pheasants, may be distinguished from old ones by the lower beak not being strong enough to bear the weight of their bodies. The lower beak of an old partridge is strong enough to sustain the weight of a brace of birds; but a young bird cannot be raised by the lower beak without the lower beak bending under the weight.
The number of birds in a covey varies much, perhaps the average may be from ten to fifteen. In some years, when the coveys are larger after a fine hatching season, it is not uncommon to see upward of twenty birds in a covey; and sometimes after a wet season, ten birds may be deemed a fair covey. Birds are most numerous after a dry summer. When there are thunder-storms about midsummer, great numbers of young birds are drowned. The young birds have many enemies besides the elements, such as cats, young dogs, hawks, foxes, and vermin of different descriptions. When the eggs are taken, or the young birds destroyed soon after leaving the shell, there will be a second hatch. Sportsmen often meet with second hatches in September, when the old birds rise screaming, and generally alight within fifty yards, as if to induce the young birds to follow. In that case the fair sportsman will not fire at the old birds, but will call in his dogs and leave the ground. At such times he should look well after the young dogs, as, when they see the birds running, they are apt to snatch up such of them as cannot get out of the way. The very young birds are called cheepers, from their uttering a scream as they rise. Full grown birds never scream as they rise, except when the young ones are helpless, nor do young birds after they are large enough for the table.
There are shooters who acquire an unsportsman-like habit of firing at a covey immediately as it rises, before the birds are fairly on the wing, and, thus without aiming at any individual bird, bring down two or three. And sometimes they will make a foul shot by flanking a covey; the birds being on the wing, come upon them suddenly, and make a simultaneous wheel; they take them on the turn, when, for a moment—and but for a moment—half the covey are in a line, and floor them rank and file. These are tricks allied to poaching, and almost as reprehensible as shooting at birds on the ground, which is nothing less than high treason.
The cock partridge is distinguished from the hen by the brown feathers which form a crescent, or horse-shoe, as it is sometimes called, on the breast.
The pointer is decidedly the best dog for partridge shooting.