174 ORNITHOLOGICAL RAMBLES. 



if the weather be unpropitious, numbers of eggs 

 are sure to be addled or unproductive; while even 

 those young birds that are successfully hatched 

 are weakly, and many of them perish by constant 

 exposure to damps and chills. Scarcity of water 

 seems to have no injurious effect on the partridge, 

 and much less than is generally supposed even on 

 the pheasant, for there are no streams and but few 

 sheep-ponds on this portion of the Downs. I 

 have invariably found that whenever the months 

 of April, May, June and July have been unusually 

 dry, amounting even to drought, feathered game 

 has been proportionably prolific and the num- 

 bers abundant during the ensuing shooting season. 

 The morning and evening dews seem to afford 

 sufficient moisture, and whatever inconveniences 

 this excessive aridity may occasion them, they 

 would appear to be comparatively trifling when 

 we notice the fatal results of a cold, wet summer. 

 This remark applies equally to other districts and 

 soils. Experienced sportsmen, and octogenarian 

 keepers who have wielded the protectoral baton 

 on the same manor half their lives, and actually 

 grown grey in pheasant-lore, all agree that the 

 drier the summer the better for the game. 



I have said nothing of the battue and the 

 crowded preserve. They are but little patronized 

 in Sussex. There are of course a few exceptions, 



