WONDERFUL BKEEDING SEASON. 39 



essential importance in the breeding of game. Thus 

 he would he full}'' aware that in a mild winter or 

 spring birds are encouraged to pair earlier than when 

 the latter season is cold and wet ; and this should at all 

 times be his guide, and he ought to act accordingly. 

 The month of June 1858, was unusually hot and the 

 weather dry ; in consequence of this it was one of the 

 best breeding seasons for pheasants and partridges that 

 had been known for many years ; and the latter were 

 sold at Thame, in Oxfordshire, for a shilling a brace. 

 Female hares in these mild winters should not be shot 

 after Christmas, but the great difficulty in doing this is 

 that few sportsmen are able to distinguish the male 

 from the female.* One essential duty of a gamekeeper 

 is every now and then, in the spring of the year, to 

 drive with dogs the pheasants and partridges out of the 

 clover and artificial grass, in order to make them breed 

 as much as possilile in the corn fields and hedgerows. 

 By doing this many nests escape being destroyed by the 

 mowers. When a man thus employed perceives in 

 time the nest, to avoid destroying it, he frequently 

 leaves some grass around it. But this precaution seldom 

 answers, for then the carrion crows and magpies are 

 almost sure to find out the nest and suck the eggs. 



If the master or gamekeeper has bantam hens to sit 

 on the eggs, I should recommend that a small reward 

 should be given to the mowers to bring them to the 

 house. I should certainly prefer this plan to leaving 

 the eggs in the field. ]\Iany gentlemen, when engaging 



* I have mentioned in another part of tliis -work that a gamekeeper 

 of Lad}' Wenman's, in Oxfordshire, knew when a hare got up before 

 him whether it was male or female, and showed me several jack hares 

 he had shot in the month of March. 



