PHEASANT'S “ 
NEST WITH sie 
THIRTEEN EGGS. 
those dark fir belts!), 
the partridges, most 
motherly of birds, 
utilising every feather 
in spreading them- 
selves over their seven- 
teen or eighteen eggs, 
deep down in the 
waving grass, the 
pheasants closely 
snuggled under the 
shelter of a friendly 
fir. 
Naturalists may re- 
eret that the natural 
fauna of carnivorous 
mamimals and birds of 
prey is all but exterminated by watchful 
keepers, whose one care is naturally the game 
they have to protect, but none will dispute 
the fact that all the large game preserves in 
Kngland give a shelter to many interesting 
birds which are not detrimental to the game, 
and are therefore not only unmolested by the 
keepers, but share with the’ partridges and 
pheasants that seclusion which is necessary 
for thei well being—almost for their very 
existence. Let any who doubt it have an 
opportunity of inspecting the plantations in 
an ordinary agricultural district, where game- 
keepers are unknown; note the gaps in the 
hedges and trodden-down tracks in the 
Animal Life 
vegetation leading to the empty boy-robbed 
birds’ nests; compare this with the coverts 
of a well-kept” game preserve, where every 
nest has eggs or young. The large game 
moors and heaths are the safe breeding 
ground of innumerable birds of the wader 
and plover family, as the Breck district is 
the sanctuary of the interesting wild birds 
which in this article the writer will endeavour 
to describe. 
The presence in the fauna of several sea- 
coast forms, the nature of the soil, and its 
immediate proximity to the deep fens, has 
led many naturalists to regard the Breck as 
a remnant of an old coast line, the shore of 
an ancient bay which possibly covered the 
whole of the fens of 
North Cambridgeshire 
and Lincolnshire. 
There is a very natural 
disposition on the part 
of students of natural 
science to value most 
highly the evidence 
afforded by their own 
special branch; and 
although geologists 
will pomt out that no 
sea shells have been 
found in the Breck, 
entomologists, know- 
ing how conservative 
PARTRIDGE’'S NEST WITH SEVENTEEN EGGS. 
