Then, again, I want to know this about partridges. How is that, when they are driven to the guns, they always select a novice and unanimously fly over his head? There is an unerring instinct about them. Your novice may disguise himself in all the sport-stained paraphernalia of a veteran shooter. Bless his simple heart, he can't deceive the birds. They come to him and court the death that never comes with a heroic persistency. When he has attained to the status of a veteran, and the birds about him are scarcer, he will look back with a fond regret to the days of his bird-frequented novitiate. * * * The long and the short of it is that partridges possess a cunning amounting to genius. Under a soft and guileless exterior the partridge hides a store of deceitful wiles that might put SHERLOCK HOLMES or any of his countless imitators to shame. His one object is not to be killed, and this he pursues with a ferocious pertinacity against which keepers, beaters, dogs and guns match themselves in vain. Here, then, is a ballad of the cunning partridge. * * * The partridge is a cunning bird. He likes not those who bring him down: From age to age he has preferred The shots who blaze into the brown, Whose stocks come never shoulder-high, Who never pause to pick and choose, But on whose biceps you descry The black, the blue, the tell-tale bruise. Or should a stubborn cartridge swell, And jam, as it may chance, your gun, The sly old partridge knows it well, "Great Scott!" he seems to chirp "here's fun." He gathers all his feathered tribe, They leave the stubble or the grass, And with one wild and whirling gibe Above your silent muzzles pass. Your scheme you carefully contrive, And, while each beater waves his flag, Your fancy, as they duly drive, Already sees a record bag. But, lo, they baulk your keen desire, For, though with birds the sky grows black, Not one of them will face the fire, And every blessed bird goes back. For partridges I'll try no more; Why should I waste in grim despair? Take me to far Albania's shore, And let me bag the woodcock there. Or on the Susquehanna's stream I'll shoot with every chance of luck The gourmet's glory and his dream, The canvas-back, that juicy duck. Yea, any other bird I'll shoot, But not again with toil and pain I'll tramp the stubble or the root, Nor wait behind a fence in vain. For of all birds you hit or miss (I've tried it out by every test), Again I say with emphasis The partridge is the cunningest. * * *