HOW TO DESTROY COCK BIRDS. 17 



tlie hedge where you are, of saluting them with both 

 barrels, and, if you have any luck, you may probably 

 bag four or five birds, or perhaps more. A friend of 

 mine, in Essex, who has a great many red-legged 

 partridges on his property, adopts this manoeuvre. He 

 told me, that after the first fortnight in September he 

 had little chance of getting any of these wild, tiresome, 

 running birds, which drive away the grey partridges, and 

 make your dogs unsteady into the bargain. In a covey 

 of birds the cocks are always the most numerous ; when 

 they are full feathered the cock bird may easily be dis- 

 tinguished from the hen by the dark-red feathers in the 

 shape of a horse-shoe on his breast. To avoid having 

 too many male birds in the breeding season kill as many 

 cocks as possible, for when the female is pursued by two 

 or three male birds she is apt to drop her eggs in various 

 places, as no nest has been made ; she might as well 

 have been an old barren bird. To avoid having too 

 many cock birds, some gentlemen net the coveys with 

 setters, and kill a proportion of them. 



This was done many years ago by the late Duke of 

 Kingston. I strongl}^ recommend to a gentleman, who 

 possesses a large landed estate in Ireland, with an 

 excellent soil for game, to adopt this plan, as he com- 

 plains that he has hitherto been unable to increase, 

 excepting in a trifling degree, his stock of partridges. 

 If, in addition to this, he had in his service, two or three 

 active and vigilant gamekeepers, either from Norfolk or 

 Scotland, who understand thoroughly how to destroy 

 vermin, then I should be greatly surprised if he had 

 not in two or three years his estate well stocked with 

 partridges. The same precaution should be taken not 

 c 



