COUNTRY LIFE
ARE our open and close seasons wisely and humanely designed? The Iluestion, which often occurs, is, of course, unanswerable, for the seasons vary by large margins. Last year shooting might have been plausibly extended for another month, since it froze and snowed throughout February and well into March, and few birds responded to the convention of St. Valentine. This year more than one January morning " seemed a straggler from the files of June." The bees poured out of the hives. With me a strangely large number settled on an earthy path, apparently the nearest and easiest place from which to suck moisture. The birds paired, and I am inclined to think that in some less well-regulated places very much harm may have been done by shooting in the last week of January. Partridges, at least in my experience, may be absurdly tame when they begin to pair, and local sportsmen, so-called, who have been vainly pursuing coveys or the yet wilder packs for a month or two, can wipe out a number of pairs. However, though one comes across some such exceptions, the feeling is, I think, general that paired birds ought not to be shot. Since the stock is rather low in most districts, such late shooting was generally discouraged. Attention was concentrated on cock pheasants.
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