METHODS OF PRESERVATION OF PARTRIDGES 251 



for partridges or pheasants, is that in which the period of 

 incubating is shortened for the wild bird by picking up all her 

 eggs as laid and incubating them under barndoor poultry. 



By this latter plan the period of incubation of any in- 

 dividual bird can be pretty nearly what the keeper wishes it 

 to be, and its length will greatly depend upon the number 

 of foxes, "he nature of the soil, and the situation of the 

 nests. The success of this system on Mr. Pearson Gregory's 

 property in the great fox-hunting county of Lincolnshire was 

 perhaps the origin of ill-naming the plan after Euston, and 

 came about because of Mr. Pearson Gregory's tenancy of 

 Euston. 



That the minor assistance should have enabled 6000 wild 

 pheasants to be killed at Euston per annum is sufficiently 

 remarkable, and is a fact due to the objection of the Duke 

 of Grafton to hand rearing, and to the initiative of the clever 

 Euston keeper, who found a middle course that turned out 

 even better than hand rearing. But in the absence of foxes, 

 as Lord Granby has remarked, the soil breeds game at Euston, 

 and it is not to be supposed that the same system would suffice 

 either upon a clay soil where rain could drown out the nests or 

 where foxes abound. For such districts the essence of the new 

 plan is the shortening of the incubating period, or the " clear " 

 egg system. The clear eggs used are necessarily, and un- 

 objectionably, pheasants' eggs, as those of partridges should 

 not exist, and when they do exist are discovered too late to be 

 of any use for that season. 



It was probably in the Newmarket district of Cambridge- 

 shire where the system of the short incubation period for 

 partridges was first put into practice ; for, as has been observed, 

 there is no such great need of it in the sandy soils of Norfolk 

 and Suffolk, which drain themselves, and besides have not to 

 contend with foxes. Possibly Stetchworth was one of the first, 

 if not the actual first, estate where it became a recognised 

 practice to take eggs and keep the birds sitting upon clear 

 pheasants' eggs until a number of 25 partridges' eggs were 

 chipped and ready to place under the sitting bird, which might 



