POACHING PARTRIDGES 71 
specialist. He cannot afford, he thinks, to waste 
time and trouble on matters connected only indirectly 
with his hobbies. If he means business, he ignores 
the existence of any creatures except those which 
he plans to capture. His opportunities for obtaining 
a close acquaintance with natural history in the fields 
remain all uncultivated. It must not be supposed, 
however, that his knowledge of his own particular 
science is superficial. Even if his calculations are 
sometimes at fault, he is generally more than a match 
for the average game-watcher ; nor does he expose 
himself to any charge of half-heartedness, but works 
his wicked will with grim determination. Keepers, 
on the other hand, though excellent fellows in the 
main, are usually too much concerned in rearing a 
big show of game to exercise their thoughts on 
matters external to their trade. 
Mr. Borrer tells an amusing tale of a culprit 
being haled before a bench of rural magistrates on a 
charge of having appropriated a partridge’s egg. The 
witness, a gamekeeper, had in his hand a chaffinch’s 
nest, containing several small bird’s eggs and a large 
white one. The chairman told him to hand up the 
nest to him, and asked which was the partridge’s egg. 
‘The big ‘un,’ replied the keeper, with contemptuous 
assurance ; on which he was asked whether he could 
