PARTRIDGES 41 
of corn round unthrashed stacks, the crumbs merely 
of the rooks’ stolen feasts. Would you not be 
horrified to think that your pheasants fared on the 
leavings of rooks ? 
In winter weather the principal foods of partridges 
are young clover and the leaves of root crops, with 
odds and ends of various green-stuffs and weeds. 
These they must eat or starve. I have seen part- 
ridges actually perched on a hedge devouring hips. 
On the other hand, pheasants, besides enjoying the 
shelter and warmth of the woods, are seldom with- 
out some arrangement for supplementing such wild 
provender as they may find, chiefly in a varying 
crop of acorns and beech-mast, not to mention the 
many delicacies easily discovered lurking among 
the thick carpet of fallen leaves. To crown their 
comparatively riotous natural living, a keeper will 
come round once or twice a day with gallons of 
maize and choice seed mixtures, the latter often 
made appetizing, or the reverse, with chemical 
condiments. To amuse themselves with between 
meals, there are always available barley, wheat, 
and oat rakings—sideboard dishes—piled in con- 
venient stacks in the cosy corners of the coverts. 
The pheasants even enjoy the services of a man 
to pull out the rakings, so that they may the 
more easily wallow in ceaseless feastings. Give 
half, a quarter, or even a tenth, of this corn to 
the partridges, and when the days of reckoning 
ras 
