ODDS AND ENDS 289 



adding, when speaking of a place, ' If you know 

 where that is.' Cross-examined by an eminent 

 K.C., he said he came ' from near Shrewsbury 

 if you know where that is.' Counsel confessed that 

 he ' seemed to remember the name.' 



I slipped five odd eggs into a partridge nest in 

 which, apparently, there were about a dozen eggs 

 the next time I came that way there were forty- 

 three. What a good thing it is that two partridges 

 very rarely lay in one nest ! There were fifty-three 

 eggs in a wonderful co-operative nest pheasants', 

 fowls', English and French partridges', guinea-fowls', 

 and turkeys'. A partridge, as a rule, is ready enough 

 to forsake her nest if her eggs are removed ; but I 

 knew one partridge that not only persisted in laying 

 in the nest from which I had removed her first three 

 eggs, but also after I had destroyed the nest with 

 my boot. So I covered the spot with a flint as big 

 as a dinner-plate ; and she laid at the side of the 

 stone. 



A keeper acquaintance told me of another per- 

 severing partridge : her nest was found, when there 

 were only a few eggs in it, at the side of a quiet ride 

 much used by the keepers going to and from the 

 rearing-field. Any odd partridge eggs were placed 

 in this nest. Twice the nest and eggs were upset 

 by the burrowing of a mole, and twice a keeper 

 made up a fresh nest for the eggs, which finally 

 numbered forty-four. In spite of the interference of 



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