166 PARTRIDGES 



These young chicks are only kept at home for three 

 or four days, when they are distributed amongst wild 

 coveys. To do this efficiently my keepers keep regular 

 plans of the nests found, against which they put the date 

 when the bird has gone down to sit. This enables us to 

 get the date of incubation fairly close. The nest is 

 watched, and a day after the wild birds have been hatched, 

 6 to 10 tame chicks are put down near the place where 

 the wild covey has been disturbed. Invariably the old 

 birds take away with them the additional lot of tame ones. 

 I have watched this interesting performance over and 

 over again, and have found it very successful. Of course 

 I am running the risk of losing tame and wild together 

 should heavy rains or bad weather follow, but I am 

 strongly against hand-reared partridges, as I feel con- 

 vinced such birds will always be weak and spoil your 

 stock. For the same reason I am dead against the intro- 

 duction of Hungarian partridges. I attribute my success 

 to the healthy state of my birds ; being strong, they can 

 stand better such adverse weather as we have had for the 

 last two seasons. 



I am also much opposed to the practice of lifting eggs 

 from nests, although they may be in very exposed places. 

 It makes the birds dislike the place and move to neigh- 

 bouring ground. In the case of nests badly exposed and 

 in dangerous places, I use the Euston system, and the 

 results have been excellent. This year we treated twenty- 

 seven nests successfully in this way. There being no 

 woods about this part of the country, and consequently 

 no hunting, we are not troubled by foxes. I use 

 reynardine round nests in exposed places to prevent dogs 

 and cats interfering with them, and with good results. 



Vermin of any kind must be carefully kept down, other- 

 wise no fair partridge-shooting can be expected. Rats I 

 consider the worst enemies, and it is the duty of a good 

 keeper to see that possibly no rat is left on the place by 

 the time the nesting season begins. Stoats and weasels 



