82 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



since birds in the circumstances just related surely 

 would lie low instead of inviting almost certain 

 doom by flopping out under the muzzle of a gun. 

 At one time I had a joint interest in the eggs 

 of pheasants in a large open pen. But if either 

 the other man or myself were not on guard all 

 day, we got very little except shells. The rooks 

 would sit on the trees and wait for each egg to 

 be laid ; then down they would swoop, and the 

 wherewithal for a glorious rocketer was gone in 

 a twinkling. The next year the pen was covered 

 in with string-netting. After the pheasants had 

 laid the eggs required they were turned out. The 

 rooks had waited long and patiently for their turn 

 to come, and it was resolved that they should 

 have it. The door of the pen was left open, and 

 a trail of egg-shells laid to a fuller supply well 

 within the enclosure. A vengeance-seeking keeper 

 with a short stick came swiftly round a corner, and 

 in a very short time there were thirty-seven rooks 

 less to steal his eggs. 



It would not be so bad if rooks were content 

 with a few of the early pheasant eggs : often 

 enough some of these are frosted, and could well 

 be spared. If only rooks would exercise their 

 cunning by distinguishing between frosted eggs 

 and others, they would be only too welcome to 

 the spoiled eggs for their trouble. True, early- 

 laying pheasants whose eggs are destroyed have 



