84 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



partridges more easily than when ' cold ' (as keepers 

 call eggs in which incubation has not started), 

 because, when a sitting bird leaves her nest, she 

 does not cover up her eggs. These, having 

 become smoothed and polished from being sat 

 upon, the more easily catch the glint of the sun, 

 and therefore the eye of rooks. It seems curious at 

 first sight that partridges should cover up their cold 

 eggs, but leave fully exposed those which are being 

 incubated. The reason, I think, must be that the 

 birds' instinct has been so ordered by Nature to carry 

 out her rule that * setty ' eggs must be allowed to 

 cool and to absorb oxygen, for the strengthening 

 and successful hatching of the embryos. 



One may distinguish between the egg-stealing 

 work of a solitary rook and that of a company of the 

 rascals. A solitary rook does not hurry, and will 

 carry an egg to some open spot with the idea 

 (presumably) of enjoying it in safety, and does not 

 take all the eggs in a nest, unless they are very 

 few, on one occasion. But when a nest is dis- 

 covered by a band of the robbers, very short work 

 is made of it, and the keeper is likely to find left 

 only a few pieces of shell near the ransacked nest. 

 Anyone who has watched a whole tribe of rooks 

 mobbing a sitting partridge cannot fail to sympathize 

 with her, whether in sympathy with partridge- 

 shooting or not. For cowardly persistency the 

 sight were hard to match. One rook catches sight 



