82 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
since birds in the circumstances just related surely 
would lie low instead of inviting almost certain 
doom by flopping out under the muzzle of a gun. 
At one time I had a joint interest in the eggs 
of pheasants in a large open pen. But if either 
the other man or myself were not on guard all 
day, we got very little except shells. The rooks 
would sit on the trees and wait for each egg to 
be laid; then down they would swoop, and the 
wherewithal for a glorious rocketer was gone in 
a twinkling. The next year the pen was covered 
in with string-netting. After the pheasants had 
laid the eggs required they were turned out. The 
rooks had waited long and patiently for their turn 
to come, and it was resolved that they should 
have it. The door of the pen was left open, and 
a trail of egg-shells laid to a fuller supply well 
within the enclosure. A vengeance-seeking keeper 
with a short stick came swiftly round a corner, and 
in a very short time there were thirty-seven rooks 
less to steal his eggs. 
It would not be so bad if rooks were content 
with a few of the early pheasant eggs: often 
enough some of these are frosted, and could well 
be spared. If only rooks would exercise their 
cunning by distinguishing between frosted eggs 
and others, they would be only too welcome to 
the spoiled eggs for their trouble. True, early- 
laying pheasants whose eggs are destroyed have 
