138 THE GUN: AFIELD AND AFLOAT 



differ specifically from our own grey partridges, and 

 it is gratifying to learn from those who have incurred 

 the expense that partridges so enlarged have materially 

 assisted towards the increase and improvement of 

 the native stock. Another method calculated to in- 

 crease the yield of partridges is carried out by the 

 keepers on some large estates ; this consists of an 

 interchange of eggs between nests situated as widely 

 apart as possible upon their ground. Thus, quietly and 

 unobtrusively, an interchange of blood may be effected 

 which, in greater or lesser degree, according to the size 

 of the property, will obviate the ill effects of in-breeding, 

 and so strengthen and invigorate the stock of partridges 

 upon an estate. If due care is exercised in carrying out 

 this plan the birds will not forsake their nests ; but it 

 should not be attempted when partridges are sitting, 

 neither, in any case, must eggs in different stages of 

 incubation come together. 



The traffic in stolen game-birds' eggs assumed most 

 serious proportions some few years ago, thousands being 

 pilfered from the nests by farm-hands and loafers, who 

 thus reaped a golden harvest during the spring months. 

 Apparently in Essex and East Anglia the practices of 

 the egg-thief were at their fullest development. Four 

 or five years ago there was a very heavy return of 

 prosecutions from various petty-sessional courts relative 

 to cases of egg-stealing in that section of the country. 

 Some of the thefts involved the taking of many hun- 

 dreds of partridges' and pheasants' eggs ; in fact, the 

 numbers of stolen eggs found in the possession of 

 certain thieves and receivers amounted annually in 

 the aggregate to many thousands. These eggs, of 

 course, were stolen for gain, and we may assume that 



