THE ENGLISH PARTRIDGE IN RUSSIA

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1510, 7 February 1901, Page 6

THE ENGLISH PARTRIDGE IN RUSSIA

■ Those who have done their partridge-* shooting in England only would be. aur»r£ed, and perhaps, pleased, wita the ' fpbrt as practised in the land of the : where. the good . Oid English hml hag" ijf late years been .introduced with |v|Lj success, after some .considerable !ffeettlty and numerous failures. -he '■ fikt attempts were unfortunate, ior the * strangers happened to com© m for . of. winters, ana ended fchair "iSelrin the inhospitable country of their adoption before ever a breeding had come round, when youngsters “ might have been born into they count, y Se fitted than their parents to, ceps •rith the rigours of the climate. J>ut the. enterprising English, sportsman imported more birds and tried again, hut the genial moujik—the inhabitant ct the Russian village—-now stepped in and improved the occasion to bis own profit. He discovered l the poor starving birds crowded together close to his

grain barn and fed them regarding their appearance as a manifestation qi the special favour of Providence rewards his household . For twq years Ik fed the strangers— fifteen brace of them and on the third day he set their food iust within the barn gates, and when the hungry creatures, after some heart searchings, ventured in after the granv he pulled the gate to by a string from his ambush, and netted the whole pack. Then he placed a candle before the shrine of his patron saint and prayed heartily some other. Englishman might presently he moved to import a second supply of these nice birds, for whion the poulterer in St. Petersburg had paid him a surprisingly good price. The indefatigable Englishman did so; but this time he .met with better fortune. The birds triumphed over the frost aud peasants, and lived to pair in the spring and to produce several coveys of good, hardy fledglings, which formed a useful nucleus for the permanent breed of their delightful tribe now firmly settled upon the foreign soil. The English partridge is now a fixture eral years’ standing in the land.— The Argosy.”