BY MANY HANDS 163 



If I could get them, I would turn out a hundred owls ; 

 they are the only sure way of killing off the rats. 



After rats, our worst vermin are the receivers of stolen 

 eggs, too often gentlemen owning shoots. 



Too many pheasants, of course, affect the partridges ; 

 they drive them off the stubbles and take the food. In the 

 nesting season I have seen pheasants drive partridges off 

 their nests and take possession of them. 



The French partridge and the English do not disagree 

 to any great extent ; besides, the Frenchman lives on 

 warren and bracken lands, where the grey bird could not 

 exist. If you open his crop you find it full of the seeds that 

 grow on the fronds of the bracken. We have killed 500 

 French partridges here in one day's driving. 



I do not think that an ordinary stock of hares are 

 detrimental to partridges. 



The partridges are fed in severe weather with Dari seed 

 and the tailings of the stacks. I think they ought to be 

 fed for about a fortnight before the corn ripens in August 

 in cold seasons, when there is very little insect life about. 

 I have seen birds at the end of July that I am sure were 

 short of food. 



Disease. Diarrhoea and worm have been very prevalent 

 for the last five years. The only artificial manure used in 

 the place is a little superphosphate and bones with the 

 root crop. 



Size of Seat. I have a head-keeper with eight to twelve 

 men under him (8000 acres). Partridges should not be 

 shot after December. I once shot on a friend's shoot on 

 llth January, when the birds had paired ; they came in 

 pairs over the guns, and we practically wiped out the 

 stock. It took him three years to get them up again. 



Stock. As to stock to leave, that is entirely a question 

 for each farm. I have known a 250-acre piece with over 

 80 pairs on it in March, which had not 10 brace on it in 

 December ; I had purposely killed them down. I regard 

 old partridges three years old and upwards as worse than 



