VERMIN AND TRAPPING 83 
the chance of better luck with a second nest ; but 
the days come when many a hen pheasant is 
rendered chickless for the season, days when the 
sap runs in the oaks, and myriads of caterpillars, 
which keepers call palmers, hatch, and foul the 
fresh oak-leaves with their feasting. Then come 
to the woods great flocks of rooks, with their sons 
and daughters, and all manner of relations. And 
though there is other food enough and to spare, 
nest after nest of pheasant eggs is destroyed, and 
the young innocent rooks are led into the evil of 
their elders. The pheasants which come to share 
the caterpillar feast love to nest beneath the heads 
of the felled oaks. 
I have been told that partridge eggs. are safe 
from rooks, because they are so carefully covered 
up when the nest is left. So they are, during the 
laying period. But rooks are artful enough to take 
stock of the goings to and fro of nest-owning 
partridges ; besides, I think one may trust the 
ordinary rook to recognize a partridge nest when 
he sees it (however well covered are the eggs) 
quite as easily as does a keeper. When partridges 
are sitting is the most annoying time for rooks to 
destroy their nests, especially when the clutches of 
eggs have been added to by the keeper, who may 
have walked scores of weary extra miles to rescue 
the added eggs from nests in risky sites. To make 
matters worse, rooks find the ‘setty’ eggs of 
6—2 
