A HEREFORD WOOD 147 



surface of bits of ground or dung where grubs chiefly 

 congregate that they raided the hen roosts. One 

 poultry keeper watched a rook flying awkwardly away 

 with the head lifted and a hen s egg impaled on the beak. 



The second clutches, now being laid, are rather smaller 

 than the first, but the postponement is not necessarily 

 harmful. With sea birds, the taking of the first clutches 

 as authorised by law has apparently increased the species. 

 This meant that the prevention of spasmodic theft after a 

 certain date did much more good than the wholesale 

 raiding of the first clutch did harm. The greedy rooks 

 will not, of course, actually benefit the gamekeeper, but 

 they will do perhaps very much less harm than he fears. 

 In my experience of very dry springs, a large number 

 of birds voluntarily surrender their first nests altogether. 

 The diaphanous hedgerows and borders are dotted with 

 nests full of eggs as cold as stones ; and the blackbirds 

 and thrushes and some chaffinches are building again. It 

 was too frosty for brooding, and, peradventure, the 

 young when born would have been short of the insect 

 food that their health demands. 



Is it possible that some of the parents and all birds 

 have quick minds have this spring taken extra pre 

 cautions to defend their eggs from the marauders ? The 

 question is prompted by observation of a particular 

 partridge s nest. It is in a garden, up against the side of 

 a paling that separates lawn from paddock. A stout 

 stump of a decapitated tree leans over the nest, roofing 

 it and protecting it from the North : but these natural 

 advantages of site, guarding the nest from observation, 

 as well as from weather, are not enough. Throughout 

 the day the clutch, which will be completed this week, 

 is completely covered with a counterpane of dead leaves. 

 An acute observer might very well look close, or a rat 



