CHAPTER XIV. 



THE PARTRIDGE : Higher Preservation. 



PRECISELY as was the case with pheasants, it is necessary 

 nowadays to distinguish between the ordinary system of 

 preservation extended to the partridge and what I 

 have termed the higher system. In fact, of late years 

 there have been some remarkable developments in the 

 latter direction applied to almost purely partridge 

 estates, so widely different from the ordinary run of affairs 

 that it will be necessary to devote quite special attention to 

 these features of the business. The conditions, moreover, 

 which surround and permit them are such as to be really 

 exceptional compared with the average run of partridge- 

 preserves, so that I think it will serve a better purpose to 

 ignore them for the time being, because they would 

 scarcely appeal to and would certainly not affect the 

 average preserver. It will also be best to reserve any 

 pointed reference to the Hungarian birds until the oppor- 

 tunity arrives to deal with that matter in detail. I shall 

 therefore confine myself, in the first instance, to the means 

 available to and the methods by which the ordinary pre- 

 server may work up a head of partridges and maintain 

 them upon his manor. 



The partridge is so ubiquitous that it would be difficult 

 to find any large expanse of these islands, except we go 

 to the most northern portions, where it is not present. 

 Consequently the introduction of these game-birds on 



