190 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



your keepers are devoting themselves exclusively to 

 the pheasantry and the coops, must be abandoned. 

 You may arrange to divide the work as you please, 

 and a great deal may be done for your young pheas- 

 ants by the keepers' wives and by others. The 

 pheasants and other game under Marlowe are by no 

 means scarce, big bags being made in the covers at 

 The Grange ; but the partridges are the principal 

 object of care and attention. 



Everything must be done to watch and thwart 

 egg-stealers and poachers. To arrive at this it follows 

 that the whereabouts of every, or nearly every, nest 

 must be known, and these must be watched and 

 visited practically every day. An under-keeper at 

 The Grange is expected to know how many par- 

 tridge nests he has, and exactly where they are ; 

 moreover, if any disappear, he is required to know 

 how, where, and when they ceased to exist. The 

 head man is quite likely to turn up unexpectedly on 

 the beat at 4 A.M. on a May morning, and require to 

 be taken round by his under-keeper and shown the 

 actual nests which he has reported to exist on his 

 beat. The destruction of vermin must be very closely 

 attended to, especially where the fences are, as in 

 Hampshire, very big and thick, and form the main 

 nesting-ground of the birds. 



