Practical Game-Preserving. 148 



Once turned away, young partridges require no more 

 looking after beyond the usual attention from the keeper, 

 but he ought to watch, without necessarily disturbing each 

 brood turned down, until the birds become too large for 

 regular watching. While the meadows and hayfields are 

 being mown, whether by machine or the scythe, the keeper, 

 or someone that may be trusted, should be present, attendant 

 either on the mowers or following the machine, with a view 

 to the discovery of any hard-set nests beyond those of 

 which he should already possess full cognizance and have 

 marked out for avoidance and non-disturbance. Not 

 infrequently, however, nests will be so disturbed that the 

 hen bird deserts them, or are considered so certain to be 

 so treated that it is the best course to transfer them to a 

 nesting-box, and leave the further process of incubation to 

 a foster-hen. Provision must, of course, be made for 

 anything of the kind, so that the clutches which the 

 partridges would otherwise desert may be quickly brought 

 in and placed under the fowls. By carrying this practice 

 out systematically, a large number of nests will, in 

 general, be saved, and particularly on extensive partridge 

 shootings ; the eggs will be hatched off, and even if only 

 fifty per cent, of these be brought in they will result in 

 full-grown birds eventually, and the small amount of 

 trouble will be repaid. 



This brings us to a point beyond which it is not 

 necessary to go in regard to the hand-rearing of par- 

 tridges on an ordinary shoot where these game-birds are 

 held secondary in importance to pheasants. Before deal- 

 ing with essentially partridge manors, there are other 

 matters which must claim attention, and may better 

 be dealt with here. 



Not many partridges die during an ordinary winter from 

 exposure and disease, and very few from hunger; they 



