248 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



but by the use of ants' eggs, and consequently that experience 

 does not go for much, because there is no difficulty in the task 

 where plenty of these insects are to be found to feed the birds 

 entirely for the first six weeks. 



The trouble arises when there are some ants' eggs but not 

 enough to go round, for this food has the effect of setting the 

 young birds against everything else. Lord Ducie's partridges 

 were mainly fed upon meal of some kind, although the writer 

 forgets what it was. Another precaution that was taken was to 

 distribute the coops very widely along the sides of corn-fields, 

 and there is no doubt that this plan obliged the birds to hunt 

 for insect food at a much earlier age than if they had been kept 

 upon ants' eggs. Unfortunately, the chicks will not eat the 

 ants themselves ; otherwise the getting of ant-hills to cart to the 

 birds would go three times as far as it does, for there are 

 generally twice as many wingless ants as there are eggs to 

 every nest. 



The second charge against these tame birds is that they grow 

 too wild in packs and fly right away, and this is a fact beyond 

 all dispute. However, it has been said that cock partridges 

 will sometimes take to young birds reared by hens, if the 

 bachelor partridges are themselves penned in the neighbourhood 

 when the little chicks are first carried from the sitting boxes to 

 the coops. There appears here to be a possible future for hand 

 rearing without its old disadvantage of packing. Probably 

 most people will think that the cock partridge is better occupied 

 in assisting his own proper mate to raise the very big coveys 

 that are now manufactured by the joint efforts of birds and 

 keepers. 



This partnership arrangement came about when the keeper 

 at The Grange discovered how easy it was, with proper pre- 

 cautions, to make up the nests of sitting partridges to 20 or 

 more eggs. The result of this was that, although eggs had for 

 many years been changed during the laying period, to effect 

 cross breeding, it now became possible to employ the partridges 

 themselves to do the work of foster-mothers a vocation that 

 farmyard hens had only half performed hitherto, and done their 



