COUNTRY LIFE AND SPORT
HARVEST AND PARTRIDGES.
With what completeness harvest hides and protects wild life over English fields may be inferred from the experience of the first two weeks of September on the stubbles. The owner of a country estate, who is a good and eager observer, said to me in August that even his old partridges had suffered from weather, maladies and vermin. After September opened, he himself walked over a good part of his property and saw no coveys, but only a few barren pairs. He apologized to his guests on the first shooting day for the poor sport he was going to show them ; but his prognostic was wrong and his apology needless. The coveys were many and were large ; and the sport fast and furious. There are bad patches, where birds are few ; but on the only three shoots of which I have had special knowledge this year there has been the same gap between expectation and realization. The admirable clover, lucerne, sainfoin or roots proved an impenetrable covert, till they were walked in line and the furtive coveys were forced to rise.
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