GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 209 



ledge, or sometimes from an envious desire to rival 

 the totals of better managed estates relentlessly 

 pursue the already diminished stock to the death, 

 trusting to the chapter of accidents and the futile 

 idea that one good breeding season will set matters 

 right. 



When the one good breeding season does come, 

 their careless management leaves them quite unpre- 

 pared to cope with the conspiracy between poachers, 

 egg or game dealers, and dishonest keepers, which I 

 regret to have to say widens and deepens every year. 



The improvement or enlargement of the natural 

 nesting cover by means of belts, or banks sown with 

 broom and gorse and wired in, is a simple means of 

 helping the stock of birds not half enough attempted. 

 Where money is no object, artificial banks should be 

 thrown up, especially in low-lying, flat country, to 

 give the birds the chance of protecting their nests 

 from heavy wet, and of leading their, broods on to the 

 slope of the bank, out of the danger of furrows or ruts 

 full of water, which are to the young chicks as great 

 rivers and pools, in which they are easily drowned. 

 I heard last year of six young partridges being found 

 drowned in the huge print of a cart-horse's hoof, after 

 a heavy thunder shower. Such banks should be left 

 bare, except for a little seed of broom and gorse, and 



p 



