GROUND, STOCK, AND POACHING 201 
meadow which has no outlook between the two big 
woods P 
How, in short, can a keeper look after the 
pheasants and partridges at the same time, and do 
justice to both? They are very distinct and different 
functions, and I wish, leaving ground game out of 
consideration—which, since the passing of that dis- 
honest measure known as the Hares and Rabbits Act, 
is a mere matter of money or arrangement—to em- 
phasise the fact that it is in the open fields, in con- 
nection with partridge management, that a keeper 
finds the key to the preservation of game, and the 
occasion of establishing cordial relations with farmers 
and labourers, and of enlisting them on the side of 
law and order, peace, plenty, and partridges. 
The netting of partridges I have alluded to above, 
meaning thereby the usual method of dragging a 
net (which is more destructive as well as more easily 
carried when made of silk) across the field where 
birds roost at night, and so dropping it over the 
covey. The whereabouts of such a net, especially if 
of silk, should not be difficult to trace anywhere 
in the neighbourhood if keepers are well up to 
their work. In the colliery districts, where keepers 
are obliged to look very closely after their ground, 
and where, besides doing a certain amount of detec- 
