150 PARTRIDGES 



age. This latter course was successfully adopted with 

 three or four nests this year. Eggs laid in unsafe or un- 

 desirable places are always lifted, and nests in good 

 situations made up to 20 or 22 with them. 



I believe in changing eggs. Here we change every 

 year with three other estates widely separated, and also 

 between different beats on the estate. This mixes the 

 blood, even if no shooting is done owing to a bad season. 



I can see no use in turning down Hungarians unless 

 the stock is very low and you want to make it up to a 

 certain number per acre. We have not enough French 

 partridges or hares to interfere with the grey partridges ; 

 pheasants we only find a nuisance when they lay in 

 partridge nests. We only feed the partridges in very 

 severe winters. 



Foxes are the worst enemies to the partridge here ; but 

 it is by no means every fox that interferes with the birds. 

 Judging from my own experience, I should say that 

 nothing will keep a fox away from partridge nests once 

 that individual fox has taken to hunting the hedgerows 

 for nests. Probably the best protection to nests are old 

 unset traps put down near the nest and well handled once 

 or twice every week. After foxes, our worst enemies are 

 rats and stoats, then hedgehogs, and every year we lose 

 two or three nests from moles burrowing underneath and 

 letting the eggs down into the run. Rooks do a certain 

 amount of harm in late or dry seasons, or where nests are 

 exposed. I am convinced that hedgehogs take eggs ; bait 

 a trap with partridge eggs and see what you catch at it. 

 Owls do no harm to nesting birds here, nor have I seen or 

 heard of an owl doing harm to young birds. Individual 

 kestrels may do a certain amount of harm, but not enough 

 to justify their being killed. Though not exactly coming 

 under the head of vermin, fowls on the stubbles are most 

 injurious to partridges. 



The only time our birds suffered from disease was in 

 1908, when several coveys were found dead, old and 



