Practical Game-Preserving. 144 



bought from a recognised reliable source, arranged for 

 with the neighbouring preservers not their keepers, be it 

 remarked or taken from the nests on the place. Like the 

 pheasant, the partridge invariably hatches out more birds 

 than it rears. The percentage of birds to eggs depends 

 mainly upon the season. The remainder die off from 

 various causes, rarely purely natural ones. Consequently, 

 if at nesting-time the partridge nests are sought out and 

 relieved of any superabundant eggs, those left stand a 

 much better chance of producing full-grown partridges 

 eventually, and the hen bird can expend all her maternal 

 energies on the less numerous progeny. At nesting-time 

 a thorough keeper and an observant farmer always know 

 where the nests are. Consequently, a daily round to 

 collect from all unset nests the eggs in excess of ten or 

 fifteen, according to the season, will be an easy matter, 

 and result in providing a good store of eggs for setting 

 under hens. The hens should be of a similar type to those 

 that hatch out the pheasant eggs. From fifteen to nineteen 

 eggs may be put under one hen, but I think seventeen 

 preferable. The hens are best set in nesting-boxes 

 out of doors, and the treatment up to hatching-time is the 

 same as with pheasants, but the subsequent course of 

 operations varies somewhat. It is highly important that 

 the eggs should be thoroughly aired every day, and a 

 sprinkling of water as applied to pheasants' eggs is neces- 

 sary, more particularly from the eighteenth day of 

 incubation onwards. 



As soon as hatched the young partridges are placed in 

 the rearing-coops, and treated in the same way as 

 pheasants, with the exception that their food must consist 

 more of an insect character if possible than in the case of 

 the latter. Of course, the natural article in the shape of 

 the eggs of the small yellow meadow-ant is much to be 



