18 REMINISCENCES OF A SPOETSMAN. 



to have too many jack hares*, for when that is the case, 

 the doe hares are sadly annoyed by them and often 

 worried to death. 



The female partridge sits about three weeks, and if 

 the weather is favourable in the spring many are hatched 

 the latter end of May and beginning of June, and 

 flyers may be seen the beginning of July, but the ex- 

 tremes of wet or dry weather prove very injurious and 

 destructive to the young birds at the time of incubation; 

 much rain may drown or chill the eggs. From the wet 

 the young birds get the cramp, chill, and frequently die ; 

 and if the heat is great, and the soil a stiff clay, many 

 are lost in the wide cracks of the land. 



When the eggs of a partridge nest happen to be 

 destroyed, the birds sometimes lay again ; if the eggs are 

 hatched, these are the small birds called squeakers, 

 which are found early in September. Good sportsmen 

 give quarter to these second broods, but in October 

 they are full grown, and then they need not be 

 spared. If the winter should be very severe, they ge- 

 nerally perish. 



No bird displays more affection to its young than the 

 partridge, and it is curious to observe the cunning 

 manoeuvres they have recourse to in order to draw off 

 the danger from their brood. When a person or a dog 



* A long time since I was on a visit to Baroness Wenman, at Thame 

 Park, in the month of March : walking about the grounds one morning, 

 I met the head gamekeeper, with his gun and a hare in his hand, who 

 told me that he was shooting jack hares, as they were too numerous, 

 and worried the does ; he afterwards showed me three or four which he 

 had shot. He also informed me that he knew the jack hares when they 

 got up, by their being smaller and their heads of a different shape. 

 This man had a sharp keen eye thus to be able to distinguish the male 

 from the female, which I am quite certain I never could have done. 



