IIo TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
dead before deserted). When some of a partridge’s 
eggs are hatched considerably in advance of the 
rest, so that some chicks are ready to have a peep at 
the world while others yet are struggling to get out 
of the shell, the cock partridge takes charge of them. 
The hen pheasant is less fortunate than the hen 
partridge. She has no attentive husband all to 
herself: always close at hand, and often by her 
side, maybe sharing her thoughts of that great day 
when they shall lead forth a tribe of sprightly chicks 
to catch flies among the lilies of the fields, hunt 
for insects lurking among the stems of corn, feast 
on juicy seeds of grass and weeds, scramble for 
the plunder of ants’ nests, bask in the smile of the 
sun, or seek shade beneath the soft herbage of 
summer. Often I have thought of this loneliness 
of the pheasant hen, and have pitied her as she 
sat through some sweet day when it is good to 
wander. 
It is no uncommon thing for a pheasant to leave 
half her eggs unhatched, and go off with what chicks 
she has, not because the rest of the eggs were 
unhatchable, but because they did not hatch with 
the rest. Yet I do not think she means wilfully 
to desert the chicks struggling within the shell, or 
possibly hatched, but still wet and unable to run. 
The cause of the trouble is that the first-hatched 
chicks by leaving the nest show that they are ready 
to go, and the mother, in her anxiety for them, 
