Protecting Nests and Sitting Birds. 23 



When a partridge has hatched her eggs and 

 taken the hrood away most people would say that 

 nothing further is necessary, but there is still 

 great danger of a fox securing the lot, especially 

 if an old and cunning one. As before stated, the 

 shells left in the nest give forth a very strong 

 odour, and a fox on finding them must know that 

 a brood has but recently gone. He also knows 

 that the little family cannot at that stage be far 

 away, and at once sets to work systematically to 

 hunt the neighbourhood till the brood is found. 

 What occurs then is easily imagined, for the 

 author has known this to happen on several 

 occasions. In some cases, too, a partridge is 

 given to returning to her nest with her chicks at 

 night, particularly if it be wet or cold, and she 

 runs a tremendous risk while spending the hours 

 of darkness near a lot of stinking shells, or in a 

 nest containing, perhaps, a dead chick in the first 

 stages of decomposition. For this reason every 

 vestige of shell and any dead chicks should be 

 removed, and all traces of the nest erased. This 

 is a precaution few know, and of which fewer 

 still take advantage. 



The author once had a unique opportunity of 

 watching the actions of a fox which had found a 

 brood of pheasants. The hen in an endeavour to 



