\v. PARTRIDGE SHOOTING (PART III} 259 



But the grand system of encouraging partridges 

 is to cjcchaniie tin. 1 ftjfis in the nests. Take, for instance, 

 a half-dozen eggs out of a nest on one part of your 

 shooting, and change them for a half-dozen on another 

 part of it a mile, or even half a mile distant as 

 this is far enough to gain an infusion of fresh blood. 

 The eggs of partridges that nest on the boundary of 

 your estate, or on wild, unsheltered land, should be 

 exchanged with those to be found on more central 

 ground, as the former are always the stronger birds. 

 If you want to establish partridges in numbers, 

 change their eggs every spring, and not once only in 

 several years ! 



You may do as you like with a partridge's nest ; 

 as if she is not sitting she will seldom desert it, and 

 differs from a pheasant in this respect. 



Some game preservers have taken it into their 

 heads, or been persuaded, to introduce foreign par- 

 tridges, such as Hungarian, at 16s. a brace, with a 

 view to a change of blood and an improved breed of 

 birds on their estates. Never was there a more 

 foolish waste of money ! Our own British birds, 

 that are acclimatised to our soil, are much to be pre- 

 iVrred to any that are foreign to it ! 



Encourage what birds you already have on your 

 land, however few, in the manner here recommended, 

 and in three or four seasons you will have a larger 

 number than if you commenced by turning down 

 birds from the Continent by the hundred. There is 



s 2 



