118 A GAMEKEEPER'S NOTE-BOOK 



warm, they perish before they are covered by body 

 feathers. Weather conditions that have had a bad 

 effect on partridges may have little effect on 

 pheasants. Many suppose that if partridges have 

 suffered from drought, pheasants, especially wild 

 ones, must have suffered also. But wild pheasants 

 have an advantage in several ways. The period 

 during which they lay and hatch their eggs and rear 

 their young is much longer than with partridges. 

 If the last ten days of June be days of cold, heavy, 

 ceaseless rain, they may practically annihilate the 

 partridge chicks. But at that time a great number 

 of young pheasants are old enough to withstand a 

 considerable rainfall. Nor are the pheasants of tender 

 age only a section of the pheasant crop so much 

 at the mercy of bad weather as are tender partridges, 

 for their haunts are chiefly in and about the woods 

 and hedgerows, which afford shelter from cold and 

 wet. In times of drought, the pheasants have the 

 best chance of finding, among the shaded herbage, and 

 beneath the masses of decaying leaves, enough moist 

 insect food to carry them over to better days. It is 

 on account of the better insect-supply in moist places 

 that in very thin partridge seasons, where birds have 

 suffered heavily from drought in open places, a few 

 fine coveys may often be found on the fringes of 

 woods. And in very wet seasons, the shelter and 

 warmth of underwood also explain the survival of 

 strong coveys. The end of September marks the time 

 of the breaking -up of the pheasant broods. The 



