io8 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



value as food, pheasants, bird for bird, are worth 

 four times as much as partridges so far as bulk of 

 food is concerned ; but this gain over partridges in 

 quantity is cancelled by the flavour of the smaller 

 birds. There must be some very cogent reasons 

 for the very manifest preferential love which keepers 

 have for pheasants. I think there are two reasons. 

 Firstly, that one pheasant, alive or dead, is equal in 

 size to four partridges, and, therefore, is equally 

 conspicuous ; and since the keeper gains credit 

 chiefly for that which is conspicuous, every pheasant 

 that he shows brings him as much credit as four 

 partridges. Secondly, because of the ease with 

 which so many pheasants practically may be assured 

 by means of hand-rearing ; and because even wild- 

 bred pheasants are not nearly so much at the mercy 

 of the weather in the breeding season as are 

 partridges they offer a surer means of gaining 

 credit, or, at least, of retaining that already 

 gained. 



It is sufficiently obvious that hand -reared 

 pheasants possess advantages over wild-bred birds ; 

 but it will be well to explain what I mean by saying 

 that wild-bred pheasants are not so much at the 

 mercy of the weather during the breeding season as 

 are partridges. Pheasants begin to lay early in 

 April, and go on much later than partridges, which 

 begin early in May, and, except when they lose 

 their first clutch of eggs shortly after completion, 



