PHEASANTS: IN PEACE 109 



seldom lay again. Besides, ninety out of a hundred 

 partridge eggs that fare so well as to hatch are 

 hatched during the few days on either side of Mid- 

 summer Day, the period of hatching varying slightly 

 according to the locality and the forwardness or 

 backwardness of the season. And so a few days of 

 cold wet weather, or even a few heavy rain-storms, 

 coming when the little partridges are less than ten 

 days old, may not only decimate the broods, but 

 destroy them wholesale. A rain-storm coming in 

 the day-time is especially disastrous to foraging 

 partridge chicks, which it overwhelms before they 

 can reach the shelter of their parents. Storms at 

 night are comparatively harmless. 



Another pull that wild-hatched pheasant chicks 

 possess over little partridges is that the woods and 

 spinneys, which are their natural haunts, besides 

 being warmer than the open fields, offer better pro- 

 tection from wet, and a ground-surface not given to 

 holding water, so that young birds can get about 

 and feed in comparative comfort. All the same, a 

 pheasant chick does not enjoy some of the advantages 

 of the little partridge in this way. The hen pheasant, 

 as a hatcher of eggs, at the best of times cannot be 

 compared to the hen partridge. The latter seldom 

 fails to hatch every one of her eggs that has any 

 hatch in it. In no case do I remember to have 

 found that a partridge had left unhatched more than 

 an egg or so which contained a chick (probably 



