194 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 



advertised that you were prepared to give a fair price 

 for them, enough would always be forthcoming from 

 genuine persons to enable you to make the required 

 addition to your stock. Many a man has paid 5/. a 

 hundred for his own eggs stolen from his own preserves. 

 The only remark to be made on this is that it serves him 

 right. It proves that he has not the wit to check his 

 own keepers, and that he is absolutely unscrupulous 

 as to what happens to his neighbour's property. 



Scores upon scores of hampers, or more usually 

 boxes, of partridges and grouse reach London long 

 before the legal hours of possession and sale on 

 August 12 and September i. A proper enquiry as to 

 where these come from, and to whom they are con- 

 signed, would vastly open the eyes of some owners of 

 game estates. All these birds are stolen or poached, 

 just as those sold out of season as Hungarian or Russian 

 partridges and Norwegian black game are for the most 

 part stolen, poached, or illegally killed on British ground. 



One reason why I have dwelt on the totals of The 

 Grange is to point it out as a typical large estate 

 where the result is in great part due to the fact that 

 these practices do not exist there. I have no right to 

 say or think that they do on the estates immediately 

 marching with it, but it is certain that on absolutely 

 identical soil and nature of ground in the same county 



