H4 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 



Pheasants seldom cover their eggs while the 

 clutch is being completed, and then but slightly. 

 Partridges, on the other hand, not only cover their 

 eggs almost invariably, but with a considerable 

 thickness of material, and most carefully. Conse- 

 quently their eggs, before being sat upon, never 

 suffer perceptibly from frost. 



Though the stock of pheasants left to hatch and 

 rear their own young be large, and the breeding 

 season good, the results, following the giving up 

 of hand-rearing, are sure to be disappointing at 

 first. It is probable that the larger the stock, the 

 poorer, in proportion, will be the result of the first 

 season. At the best of times pheasants are apt 

 to be slovenly in choosing nesting-sites, and to 

 lay in each other's nests. These failings are 

 particularly noticeable in hens bred from a stock 

 of birds hand-reared for generations, and them- 

 selves hand-reared and pampered in endless ways. 

 Most of us have heard the story of the keeper in 

 whose accounts appeared an item for brandy, his 

 explanation being that it was to mix with his birds' 

 food when the cold wanted keeping out. I think 

 it best, when giving up rearing, only to leave a 

 moderate stock, and then not to shoot any hens 

 for a season. I have proved that not till several 

 generations after pheasants have been left to breed 

 in a wild state do they regain the full measure of 

 their natural shrewdness in taking care of them- 



