46 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



in May, when partridges begin to lay in earnest, 

 there are few fields possessing the amount of cover 

 which the birds consider decent for nesting purposes, 

 except grass fields. Unfortunately, the majority of 

 these are mown for hay about ten days before the 

 majority of the eggs are ready to hatch. Hence 

 the disastrous results practically unavoidable now 

 that the whirring horse-drawn * cutters ' do all the 

 mowing. 



I have known a partridge to lay on a bare fallow. 

 Special precautions were taken to see whether she 

 would succeed in hatching her eggs, and she did so. 

 True, there were not any foxes dangerously near, and 

 since the rooks did not demolish the eggs, I imagine 

 they must have looked upon the nest as a hoax. 



Here are my ideas on partridge coverts where 

 money is an object. The crops which I rejoice to 

 see here and there are rye (for seed) and forward- 

 sown vetches ; if the latter also are left for seed, so 

 much the better. When foxes have been specially 

 attentive to nests in hedges, I have often found con- 

 solation in such crops. A nest in a field growing 

 the crops I have named is little more liable to suffer 

 from weather than one in a hedge-side. Hence, by 

 way of cheap, quick-growing, and effective part- 

 ridge coverts, I do not see that anything can surpass 

 the sowing of strips or patches of rye and autumn 

 vetches at suitable intervals, and preferably on the 

 higher parts of the fields. Certainly, elaborately 



