62 The Amateur Poacher 



Leaving now the wood for the lane that wanders 

 through the meadows, a mower comes sidling up, and, 

 looking mysteriously around with his hand behind 

 under his coat, ' You med have un for sixpence,' he 

 says, and produces a partridge into whose body the 

 point of the scythe ran as she sat on her nest in 

 the grass, and whose struggles were ended by a blow 

 from the rubber or whetstone flung at her head. 

 He has got the eggs somewhere hidden under a 

 swathe. 



The men that are so expert at finding partridges' 

 eggs to sell to the keepers know well beforehand 

 whereabouts the birds are likely to lay. If a stranger 

 who had made no previous observations went into the 

 fields to find these eggs, with full permission to do so, 

 he would probably wander in vain. The grass is long, 

 and the nest has little to distinguish it from the 

 ground ; the old bird will sit so close that one may 

 pass almost over her. Without a right of search in 

 open daylight the difficulty is of course much greater. 

 A man cannot quarter the fields when the crop is high 

 and leave no trail. 



Farmers object to the trampling and damage of 

 their property ; and a keeper does not like to see a 

 labourer loafing about, because he is not certain that 

 the eggs when found will be conscientiously delivered to 



