50 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
value of the crops damaged by game, including 
rabbits and hares, exceed a sovereign. No doubt 
and no wonder, in consideration of existing circum- 
stances, the farmer did not take full advantage of 
the Ground Game Act! Now all this is changed, 
and the crops themselves must be relied upon 
directly to provide the amount required against the 
day of audit. 
Though I have heard enough complaints con- 
cerning rabbits to make me for ever sick of the 
very mention of their name, none of the petitioners 
has ever launched the most speculative accusation 
against partridges. In view of the evidence upon 
which many other complaints have been founded, 
I must confess that I am somewhat surprised. With 
some of the farmers with whom I have had to deal 
the excuse must be that damage by partridges never 
entered their heads. I have made it my business 
specially to inquire of good farmers, who were also 
good sportsmen, and shot as often as they got the 
chance, whether they thought that partridges were 
in any way capable of doing a farmer, or anyone 
else, damage; and if so, how, when, and where. 
The reply from one and all may best be given in 
its raw state: ‘Well, I dunno as they do.’ One 
whom I questioned told me, as, of course, I knew 
quite well already, that there was only one com- 
bination of circumstances in which partridges might 
justly be considered to do ‘no good’—that is, when 
