PARTRIDGE REARING 
six young birds to a covey. If you reckon that 20 per cent of your nests 
may meet with accidents of various kinds, and that some birds will be 
unpaired, or meet with fatal accidents during the pairing season, this 
would leave 110 coveys of eight birds each; i.e., 880 birds on the beat. 
The first time over, with luck, you should get 500 birds, leaving 380 on 
the beat. Some of these will be badly pricked and die, others will fall a 
prey to vermin — cats, foxes, etc. This should leave about 150 brace for the 
next season. 
As a rule where more than 200 brace are killed in the day, except in 
a bumper year, the beat is considerably larger than 700 acres. As to 
the number of birds the ground will carry, Mr Heatley Noble writes : 
“ I believe that far more birds can be kept to the acre round Newmarket 
than in any other part of these Isles. Look at Dalham, Denham, and 
Chippenham ; on the last-named, when our late King was shooting there, 
they once killed 400 brace in four hours. The property was small, and 
they shot it many times, never trying for a big bag, or leaving a very 
large stock. Then again look what they used to do at Six Mile Bottom, 
and will again if they only get a decent season or two. On the other 
hand, look at a certain property in Hampshire. If I remember right the 
first year they knew of 160 nests, and killed some 800 brace, since then 
(and before the bad years) they have known of 400 nests, hatched off well, 
no foxes to speak of, or vermin, but the bag was hardly larger.” He adds: 
‘‘ No beat of 700 acres can stand a second shoot if the birds are properly 
brought to six good guns, and the weather is all right. They are flattened 
out, and only a stock is left.” 
(3) A good understanding between keepers, tenants, and labourers is 
absolutely necessary. Without it, no matter how heavy a stock may be 
left, the results are sure to be disappointing. A dissatisfied tenant can do 
much harm by letting his dogs run loose all over the farm during the 
nesting season, or by the late cutting and cleaning of certain favourite 
hedges and ditches. Whilst the labourer who is hostile, even if he or 
his wife do not actually take the eggs or put other people in the way 
of finding them, may easily put his foot in the nests and destroy many of 
them. 
A wise master, therefore, will cultivate the co-operation of the tenant 
by asking him to come out and see the sport and stay to lunch when his 
farm is shot over, giving him an adequate present of game in proportion 
to his sport, and doing anything else in his power to assist the tenants. 
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