4 Game and Foxes. 



addition, the expense of carrying out the French 

 system is so heavy that it is never hkely to be 

 popular in this country, even were it a success, so 

 no more need be said. 



While engaged in sitting, the partridge is very 

 vulnerable to attack by foxes, and the losses 

 occasioned by birds being seized while on the 

 nest have often been enough to break a game 

 preserver's heart ; but it is satisfactory for the 

 author to be able to relate that a better state of 

 affairs is soon likely to exist, owing to the attention 

 paid on all hands to the protection of the nest. 

 The Euston system, concerning which such a furore 

 was lately made in the sporting Press, sprang from 

 a desire to insure the hatching of each nest, but 

 the advantage of it is diflficult to see, while the 

 labour connected with it is all too plainly apparent. 

 For the benefit of those unacquainted with this 

 system it shall be explained in as few words as 

 possible. 



Under the Euston system the eggs are removed 

 from a partridge's nest as the bird lays, and 

 artificial ones substituted, on which she goes down, 

 her own eggs meanwhile being brought to hatching 

 point in incubators or beneath fowls. They are 

 then given back to the bird, special precautions 

 being taken to protect her from interference by 



