METHODS OF PRESERVATION OF PARTRIDGES 247 



Roughly generalising, it is only in Norfolk and Suffolk where 

 the keepers are not troubled with the fox question, and conse- 

 quently it is only there that partridges can be safely left alone 

 to find their own salvation. But this system can go too 

 far even in those favoured counties, and naturally we find 

 energetic shooters who try all round, declaring that Norfolk and 

 Suffolk are " played out." As a matter of fact, the very ease of 

 preservation in those counties has done them a great deal of 

 comparative injury, because, while they have been going back, 

 or at least standing still, other counties have been going ahead 

 in a wonderful manner. Probably the progress made in 

 Nottinghamshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Cambridgeshire is 

 far greater than anything done in the Eastern Counties, compared 

 with what the respective stocks were in those districts twenty- 

 five years ago. 



The first phenomenal partridge preservation and the first 

 break away from the system of letting birds preserve themselves 

 occurred at Elvedon in the sixties of last century. Then large 

 numbers of partridges were reared by hand on that estate, and at 

 the same time, or a little later, a great many people began to rear 

 partridges by hand. One of these was Lord Ducie, in Oxford- 

 shire. The plan adopted there was to exchange pheasants' eggs 

 for those of partridges with anyone who would bring the latter ; 

 consequently, it may be said that Lord Ducie was one of the 

 first men to prefer partridge shooting to covert shooting. Now, 

 on the contrary, a very great many people set the partridge up 

 as the first game bird, and his popularity is growing. 



But to return to the hand rearing of partridges : the difficulty 

 of this business is twofold. First, it is generally believed that 

 the birds must be fed with ants' eggs to make a success. Second, 

 it is asserted that tame bred partridges " pack," and that without 

 old birds to lead them these packs are likely to travel for miles 

 and be lost to those to whom they belong. 



The first charge against hand rearing is not exactly true, 

 because Lord Ducie's keeper succeeded in rearing large quantities 

 of partridges without the use of ants' eggs. The author as a boy 

 and in an amateurish way reared birds about the same period, 



