BY MANY HANDS 159 



advantage of finding all the nests possible is that by the 

 end of June you can estimate the number of your breed- 

 ing stock. I lift very few eggs, practically only those in 

 very dangerous positions or deserted. These I place in 

 nests round corn-fields and make them up to 21. 



I believe in changing the eggs as much as possible, 

 and especially in getting eggs from a distance and from 

 bad, heavy partridge grounds. Personally I am not in 

 favour of turning down Hungarians, and have never 

 done so. 



We suffer severe losses among our young birds from 

 the machines in the hay harvest. Here every fourth field 

 is a hay-field, and cut, as a rule, during the last ten days 

 of June. If the season is a late one, as generally happens, 

 most of the young birds are only a few days old and prac- 

 tically unable to get out of the way. The result is that 

 enormous numbers are killed in spite of every precaution. 

 I get my farmers to leave the last acre, and the keepers 

 cut it with scythes early the next morning ; but if the 

 night is wet or cold, and the old birds have not come back, 

 many of the little ones die. It is very necessary to have 

 keepers in the fields whilst they are being cut. Of course, 

 if the farmers could be persuaded to begin cutting in the 

 middle of the field and work outwards, all would be well, 

 as the old birds would gradually lead the young ones to 

 the outsides ; but I have been quite unable to persuade 

 my farmers to do this. Numbers of old as well as young 

 birds get killed or mutilated during the hay-cutting, and 

 altogether I lose hundreds of birds during this fortnight. 

 The young ones that escape also receive a check in being 

 deprived of their food in the grass-fields. There is, in my 

 opinion, far more food there than in the corn. 



Of course in an early season and, in my experience, 

 all the good years are early ones the birds, or a good 

 proportion of them, are a fortnight older and can fly or 

 run away from the machines. In that last very bad season 

 all the young birds that survived here were the early 



