250 THE COMPLETE SHOT 



Holkham has been the most famous partridge estate for a 

 century, but much of this fame is owing to the fact that it is 

 a very large estate, naturally well suited for game, and especi- 

 ally for partridges. Besides this, it was one of the first upon 

 which partridge driving was practised, and this method seems 

 to have raised the stock by double. At the same time, the 

 system of only using the same beat once in the season limits 

 the kill enormously. 



This estate has beaten all previous records for a single 

 day's shooting by a bag of 1671 birds in 1905. Naturally the 

 thought at once occurs that the Holkham must be the best 

 system ; but when we understand that this beat is made upon 

 2000 acres in 20 drives to 8 guns, and that this is the total 

 season's bag of the very best beat in the very best partridge 

 land in England, and remember also that on 8coo acres of 

 the best land only 4749 birds were bagged as the whole season's 

 work, but all in four days, the question arises, What would 

 Holkham do in the season if it were subjected to the most 

 modern methods of preservation ? 



Another splendid estate for game, and one similar to 

 Holkham in size and dryness of land, is Euston. The Duke 

 of Grafton has in a letter to the Times repudiated the idea that 

 partridges are preserved at Euston by the plan adopted there 

 for pheasants. On the contrary, the partridge preserving at 

 Euston has been of the same character as elsewhere in Norfolk 

 and Suffolk. The ill-named " Euston plan" was not wanted there 

 for partridges, and was applied only to pheasants, and to them 

 not as has been very often described. The great difference 

 between the Euston pheasant system and the latest method 

 with partridges, erroneously described and applied to Euston, 

 is that in the case of pheasants at Euston the birds are not 

 kept sitting on sham or bad eggs while their own are being 

 incubated. They are, according to the Duke's letter, allowed 

 to sit on their own eggs, and when the latter are chipping they 

 are given more eggs in the same forward condition such eggs 

 as have been picked up out of destroyed nests. 



The system that is not employed at Euston, then, either 



