CALLS, natural and artificial, among fowlers, a sport much practised during the wooing season of partridges, especially for taking cock-partridges; for which they put a hen into a cage, to call and bring them near. The hen-partridge should be set near a hedge, in a thin, open, wire-cage, so that she may be seen at a good distance: then the net, called halter, should be placed quite round the cage, each part about the distance of twenty feet: the fowler should retire behind the hedge.
Artificial CALLS are best made of box, walnut-tree, or the like: they are formed of the bigness of an hen's egg, bored through from end to end; about the middle there must be a hole hollowed within, to the bottom; then have a pipe of a swan's quill, and the bone of a cat's foot, opened at one end, which must be conveyed into the hole at the end, and so thrust into the hole at the middle; take afterwards a goose-quill, opened at both ends, and put it in at the other end of the call; blow into the quill, and it will make the like noise as the partridge-cock does.