TRESPASSERS AND POACHERS 235 
out great risk of being seen yourself). I knew a 
man who, so soon as the nesting season of partridges 
began, would travel about as a sharpener of saws. 
He had with him a woman who wheeled an old 
perambulator. I got a good chance to watch him 
one day, when by a ruse I had led him to suppose 
that the coast was clear. And I am pretty certain 
I might have caught him nicely, if only I had not 
removed the eggs from a roadside partridge nest 
a few hours before. Strolling along, of course, near 
that hedge, which caught the morning sun (so loved 
by nesting birds), he spotted the nest, looked this 
way and that, stopped, turned over the dead grass 
and bits of leaves in the nest, but, unfortunately, 
found no eggs. With the idea of scaring him from 
my beat for the next few weeks, I suddenly intro- 
duced myself, and asked him to explain his conduct. 
He had the cheek to tell me that he was searching 
for little knobs of chalk, which, he said, were useful 
for sharpening saws. How knobs of chalk were 
useful for sharpening saws, or why they should be 
found in a partridge nest, I never could understand. 
One of a gang of four consummately cunning 
partridge-eggers would assume the réle of an itine- 
rant musician, violin-case in hand. What was in 
that case I never had a chance to see, nor did I ever 
hear the man play. A neighbouring keeper told me 
how a tramp who had lifted a clutch of pheasant 
eggs caught himself. The man came to the keeper 
