TRESPASSERS AND POACHERS 235 



out great risk of being seen yourself). I knew a 

 man who, so soon as the nesting season of partridges 

 began, would travel about as a sharpener of saws. 

 He had with him a woman who wheeled an old 

 perambulator. I got a good chance to watch him 

 one day, when by a ruse I had led him to suppose 

 that the coast was clear. And I am pretty certain 

 I might have caught him nicely, if only I had not 

 removed the eggs from a roadside partridge nest 

 a few hours before. Strolling along, of course, near 

 that hedge, which caught the morning sun (so loved 

 by nesting birds), he spotted the nest, looked this 

 way and that, stopped, turned over the dead grass 

 and bits of leaves in the nest, but, unfortunately, 

 found no eggs. With the idea of scaring him from 

 my beat for the next few weeks, I suddenly intro- 

 duced myself, and asked him to explain his conduct. 

 He had the cheek to tell me that he was searching 

 for little knobs of chalk, which, he said, were useful 

 for sharpening saws. How knobs of chalk were 

 useful for sharpening saws, or why they should be 

 found in a partridge nest, I never could understand. 

 One of a gang of four consummately cunning 

 partridge-eggers would assume the role of an itine- 

 rant musician, violin-case in hand. What was in 

 that case I never had a chance to see, nor did I ever 

 hear the man play. A neighbouring keeper told me 

 how a tramp who had lifted a clutch of pheasant 

 eggs caught himself. The man came to the keeper 



