PARTRIDGES 43 
heard sportsmen and keepers discussing how curious 
is the phenomenon that, whereas on a certain part 
of a shoot there were ‘any amount’ of birds up 
to the beginning of October, after that there were 
scarcely any, and wzce versa. The very simple ex- 
planation is a question of food. And since it may 
so happen that fields to which your September 
supplies of birds may adjourn in October (when 
wheat is mostly sown) are beyond your boundary, 
the fact may prove not only curious, but annoying. 
Then partridge coverts are, if not unheard of, 
unthought of, on ninety-nine shoots out of a hun- 
dred. By partridge coverts I do not necessarily 
mean a collection of holding stuff, from which the 
birds may be shot with greater ease. Why should 
partridges be compelled to take pot-luck, and yet be 
growled at without stint when they do not figure in 
bags reckoned by hundreds of brace? On grouse 
moors we all know how carefully the heather is 
burnt, so that there shall be young shoots for food 
and old heather for nesting and cover. Thus are 
grouse catered for as far as the ingenuity, money, 
and sweat of man can assist them. If they were 
just left to make the most they could of their natural 
surroundings, even then they possess an immense 
advantage over partridges. With partridges, num- 
berless nests must be destroyed accidentally by 
farming operations, of which grouse are in no 
danger. Curiously enough, it is the very men who 
