AND NEIGHBOURHOOD. 301 



imitation, and has a peculiar and indefinable charm 

 to all lovers of the country. To keep up a healthy 

 stock of Partridges an occasional change of blood is 

 absolutely necessary, and we have at Lilford turned 

 out at various times a considerable number of birds 

 imported from Hungary and Bohemia, with very 

 great advantage. As is well known, Partridges are 

 by no means difficult to rear by hand, and thrive well 

 upon a diet of ants' eggs, curds, seeds, and green 

 food, but these hand-fed birds are liable to various 

 maladies from which their wild relations seem to 

 be exempt, and, from their tameness and habit of 

 running and rising all together, never show the same 

 sport as the "s^dld natives. 



The season of 1884 was decidedly the best for 

 Partridges in our neighbourhood since 1859, and our 

 total bag on our own shootings was larger by more 

 than 400 birds than in any season of which we have 

 any record *. We cannot say how we shall be borne 

 out by meteorological observation when we state that 

 in our experience good and bad Partridge-seasons 

 occur in cycles ; for instance, with us at Lilford 1850 

 Avas a fairly good season, 1851 a better, and 1852 

 superlatively excellent ; the three following years 

 w^ere aU exceedingly bad, till in 1855, to use a 

 common expression, we had no birds at all, and on 

 the 1st of September of that season my brother and 

 myself walked over some of our best farms with good 

 pointers and only saw five birds. In the following 

 two seasons of 1856 and 1857, which were both of 

 them favourable, our Lilford Partridges re-asserted 

 themselves, and in 1859 the county was swarming 



* Our subsequent "bags" in 1887 and 1892 by far exceeded 

 that of 1884. 



