When the shooter has been long accustomed to a dog, he can tell by the dog’s proceeding, whether game is near or not when pointed, or whether the birds are running before the dog. If he suspect them to be running, he must walk up quickly before his dog, for if he stop or appear to look about him, the birds instantly rise. Whenever it is practicable, unless the birds be very tame and his dogs young ones, the shooter should place himself so that the birds may be between him and the dogs. They will then lie well. The moment a dog points, the first thing to be done is to cast a glance round to ascertain in which direction the covers and corn-fields lie; the next is to learn the point of the wind; the shooter will then use his endeavor to gain the wind of the birds, and to place himself between them and the covers, or otherwise avail himself of other local circumstances. * * * * * PARTRIDGE SHOOTING. [Illustration: partridge] We commence our notice of feathered game with the partridge, as shooting that bird is generally the young sportsman’s first lesson, although in the order of the season grouse shooting takes precedence. The partridge may be termed a home bird, for the shooter who resides in the country, finds it almost at his door, while it is requisite to undertake a journey, perchance a very long one, before he arrives at the grounds frequented by grouse. As it requires neither woods, nor marshes, nor heaths to afford them shelter, they are found more widely scattered than the pheasant, the woodcock, or the grouse, and hence the pursuit of them is one of the chief sources of recreation to the shooter. Though not so highly prized by the sportsman as the birds last mentioned, the abundance in which partridges are found, wherever they are preserved, renders the sport sufficiently attractive. At the commencement of the season, when they have not been much disturbed by persons breaking dogs, they are as tame as could be wished by the most inexpert sportsman, and at that time afford capital diversion to the young shooter, and to those rheumatic and gouty old gentlemen who—too fond of their ease to brush the covers or range the mountains—in the lowland valleys, “shoulder their crutch, and show how fields were won.” Partridges are most plentiful in those countries where much grain, buckwheat, and white crops are grown. While the corn is standing, it is very rare that many shots can be obtained, for the coveys, on being disturbed, wing their way to the nearest cornfield, where it is forbidden the shooter to follow them, or to send his dogs in after them.