194 SHOOTING THE PARTRIDGE 
advertised that you were prepared to give a fair price 
for them, enough would always be forthcoming from 
genuine persons to enable you to make the required 
addition to your stock. Many a man has paid 52a 
hundred for his own eggs stolen from his own preserves. 
The only remark to be made on this is that it serves him 
right. It proves that he has not the wit to check his 
own keepers, and that he is absolutely unscrupulous 
as to what happens to his neighbour’s property. 
Scores upon scores of hampers, or more usually 
boxes, of partridges and grouse reach London long 
before the legal hours of possession and sale on 
August 12 and September 1. A proper enquiry as to 
where these come from, and to whom they are con- 
signed, would vastly open the eyes of some owners of 
game estates. All these birds are stolen or poached, 
just as those sold out of season as Hungarian or Russian 
partridges and Norwegian black game are for the most 
part stolen, poached, or illegally killed on British ground. 
One reason why I have dwelt on the totals of The 
Grange is tg point it out as a typical large estate 
where the result is in great part due to the fact that 
these practices do not exist there. I have no right to 
say or think that they do on the estates immediately 
marching with it, but it is certain that on absolutely 
identical soil and nature of ground in the same county 
