Weather makes more difference to partridge-driving than to most forms
of shooting. The ideal day comes when the weather is mild, and the air
still. Then only can the movements of partridges be controlled with
some certainty--not that partridges ever can be driven against their
will. In high wind their speed is tremendous, and a hundred birds
do not give the chances of ten too tired to swerve. In hard, frosty
weather, when the fields are like rough paving-stones, though the day
is still, the birds are up and off before the advancing driving-line
can shape itself to influence their flight. But in mild, still
weather, the soft soil clogs the birds' feet, they are slow to rise,
and packs and coveys become split up and their ranks disorganised--to
the advantage of the sportsmen.
A mild day may open hopefully enough, but if driving rain comes with
blustering wind the sport is spoiled.
On a frosty day, when things have been going badly, the guns may be
congratulating themselves as they reach some big turnip-fields for
which the birds have been making. A turnip-field may be expected to
steady and control the departure and the direction of birds; but in
the grip of frost turnips are only a little better than the bare,
frozen field. For the leaves, that yesterday made luxuriant cover,
to-day are flattened to the ground by the frost. Even the charlock,
which may have done so much to make up for the thinness of the turnips,
has been shrivelled to a few brown stems. Why the farmer leaves the
late-grown charlock untouched is because he knows that before it
reaches seed-time the frost will have killed every plant. On a small
shoot, frost-flattened turnips may ruin the hope of a full day's
partridge-driving. On big shoots frost counts for less, for long drives
can be taken. Short drives in winter partridge-driving are seldom
profitable--whether a shoot be small or big.
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[Illustration: PEEWITS IN WINTER.