Practical Game-Preserving. 152 



importation of foreign birds at most a costly and only 

 partly-profitable procedure we have had the adoption by 

 preservers of what is known as the French it ought to be 

 Continental system of partridge-rearing, and its adapta- 

 tion to British requirements, upon lines which have im- 

 proved and benefited it. The establishment of partridge 

 sanctuaries is another comparatively new feature of the 

 higher preservation upon large estates, so that, altogether, 

 partridge-preservation, in England especially, may be said 

 to have taken quite a new departure with the arrival of 

 the twentieth century. 



Inasmuch as the importation of Hungarian birds may be 

 regarded as appealing to the great majority of preservers, 

 it is advisable to refer to this traffic and its influence and 

 utility in regard to partridge-preservation in the first 

 instance. In doing so it is necessary to point out that 

 there are several features in connection with this matter 

 which do not altogether lend themselves to approval, 

 and that it is just as necessary to exercise the closest care 

 in obtaining them as in dealing with all other supplies 

 of game-birds or eggs. To put it plainly, Hungarian 

 Partridges, so-called, are not always entitled to be so 

 described, and even if they be of Hungarian origin, they 

 may not always be of the kind suitable to British preserves. 

 Hungary is, to say the least, an elastic expression, and the 

 partridges coming from that country may easily be of a 

 character quite unfitted for profitable use in our preserves. 

 The districts where they are obtained, the manner and time 

 of their being taken, and the kind of bird secured may, 

 as a matter of fact, entirely unfit them for employment 

 for the purpose for which they are chiefly intended in 

 these islands. Far more than anywhere else in mid- 

 eastern Europe are the partridges of the Hungarian plains 

 and mountain slopes endowed with the migratory instinct. 



