30 ' FACT AGAINST FICTION. 



save one, wlio sat in a place accessible to rain, and 

 she wont off with only five. Tlie pheasants, too, had 

 been hatching off most successfully, yet as time went 

 on I saw old hen pheasants with only one or two 

 young ones, and occasionally with none. There were 

 no young dead birds found in the cover rides, and 

 when the earlier crops were cut, such as grass, rye, 

 peas, &c., not the vestige of a dead bird was found, 

 other than might have arisen from some casualty. 

 This puzzled me in the rides and in the grass, but 

 on arable land in a light soil, the ^^ sexton beetle," 

 in his black gown and red scarf, buries any com- 

 paratively small bird, hare, or rabbit, that he and his 

 fellows cannot at once eat up, therefore no remains 

 of small game can on such a site be found. The 

 pheasants with me, both hand bred and wild, did well, 

 particularly the former ; but the partridges, old and 

 voung, decreased every day ; and there was no help 

 for it. As the month of September advanced, we 

 picked up what had been fine full - grown, full- 

 feathered young partridges, with the horseshoe on 

 their l^reast, dwindled to the merest skeletons — some 

 dead, others almost dead ; and we examined them 

 anatomically, but all in vain. Neither nostril, 

 brain, nor croj), nor gizzard, afforded us the 



