We have seen this year a few exorbitant examples of
this inaMa, on which our best sportsmen and 'writers on sport have already animadverted. It is averred that on occasion the birds were too exhausted to fly, and that the dogs and beaters added as large a quota to the bag as any gun. Let such details. whatever their mathematical accuracy. be set aside. I write this not to refer to any one silly and beastly instance, but to discourage the growth of a false idea of sport. I knew of one shoot last year where a successful effort was made to lower the local best-on-record. Massed limiters and pieked guns were turned upon the partridges early in September. Some 200 brace were killed and the numbers so reduced that no further shooting could be enjoyed for the rest of the season if any birds were to be left to breed. A number of half-grown birds were shot.
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