108 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
value as food, pheasants, bird for bird, are worth 
four times as much as partridges so far as bulk of 
food is concerned ; but this gain over partridges in 
quantity is cancelled by the flavour of the smaller 
birds. There must be some very cogent reasons 
for the very manifest preferential love which keepers 
have for pheasants. I think there are two reasons. 
Firstly, that one pheasant, alive or dead, is equal in 
size to four partridges, and, therefore, is equally 
conspicuous; and since the keeper gains credit 
chiefly for that which is conspicuous, every pheasant 
that he shows brings him as much credit as four 
partridges. Secondly, because of the ease with 
which so many pheasants practically may be assured 
by means of hand-rearing ; and because even wild- 
bred pheasants are not nearly so much at the mercy 
of the weather in the breeding season as are 
partridges—they offer a surer means of gaining 
credit, or, at least, of retaining that already 
gained. 
It is sufficiently obvious that hand - reared 
pheasants possess advantages over wild-bred birds ; 
but it will be well to explain what I mean by saying 
that wild-bred pheasants are not so much at the 
mercy of the weather during the breeding season as 
are partridges. Pheasants begin to lay early in 
April, and go on much later than partridges, which 
begin early in May, and, except when they lose 
their first clutch of eggs shortly after completion, 
