Practical Game-Preserving. 182 



for a rise of wages and do not obtain it, or those who 

 have been discharged for idleness or bad behaviour ; 

 people who have been warned about trespassing; farmers 

 who consider bad seasons and low prices are caused by 

 their landlords or due to game-preserving these are the 

 kind of poachers who step on a partridge's nest or kick 

 a brood of young ones to death. They are poachers, and 

 of the meanest sort. 



The necessary protection of partridges from the various 

 modes of destruction so far detailed is obvious enough. 

 The gamekeeper's duty, pure and simple, must be the pre- 

 ventive, and the remedy more certain vigilance for the 

 future. Partridges must in addition, however, be saved 

 from themselves, as we have already stated. Old and 

 bachelor cocks must be done away with if the stock be to in- 

 crease, and not to stay at a certain quantity year after year. 



Bachelor cocks are either those which have become effete, 

 or for some reason do not pair, and separately or collec- 

 tively prevent other birds from bringing their breeding 

 operations to any material result. These bachelors should 

 always be destroyed, as well as what are technically termed 

 " hen cocks " that is, birds which suffer, as hen 

 pheasants do also, from a disease of the ovary that 

 precludes their breeding, when they assume the colouring 

 of cock-birds, and act in the manner of " bachelors." 

 These must also be killed off, for they worry the nesting- 

 hens to such an extent that the latter are often unable 

 to deposit two eggs on the same spot. Everyone has 

 found single partridge eggs lying about in any and odd 

 places. This is usually the result of the presence of 

 " bachelors " and " hen cocks " on the preserves. 



During the nesting season it should be one of the most 

 important duties of the keeper to " beat " the clovers and 

 meadow-grass with a view to the discovery and marking of 



