II4 TEN YEARS OF GAME-KEEPING 
Pheasants seldom cover their eggs while the 
clutch is being completed, and then but slightly.: 
Partridges, on the other hand, not only cover their 
eggs almost invariably, but with a considerable 
thickness of material, and most carefully. Conse- 
quently their eggs, before being sat upon, never 
suffer perceptibly from frost. 
Though thef'stock of pheasants left to hatch and 
rear their own young be large, and the breeding 
season good, the results, following the giving up 
of hand-rearing, are sure to be disappointing at 
first. It is probable that the larger the stock, the 
poorer, in proportion, will be the result of the first 
season. At the best of times pheasants are apt 
to be slovenly in choosing nesting-sites, and to 
lay in each other's nests. These failings are 
particularly noticeable in hens bred from a stock 
of birds hand-reared for generations, and them- 
selves hand-reared and pampered in endless ways. 
Most of us have heard the story of the keeper in 
whose accounts appeared an item for brandy, his 
explanation being that it was to mix with his birds’ 
food—when the cold wanted keeping out. I think 
it best, when giving up rearing, only to leave a 
moderate stock, and then not to shoot any. hens 
for a season. I have proved that not till several 
generations after pheasants have been left to breed 
in a wild state do they regain the full measure of 
their natural shrewdness in taking care of them- 
