THE GUN AT HOME AND ABROAD 
insisting on using it as a seat. I have known a partridge sit on an empty 
nest for a week ; and another hatched twenty-eight out of twenty-nine eggs 
laid in her nest, the twenty-ninth being unfertile.” 
To return to the subject of stock. As a rule hand-reared birds, at any 
rate in large numbers, are unsatisfactory. Unless there is a large natural 
supply of ants’ eggs and insect food they are difficult to rear, a very 
large percentage get trodden on by the hens, or die from other causes. 
Those that survive have no fixed home, they pack together, wander all 
over the place, and when the nesting season comes round they are probably 
not such good parents as the naturally reared wild birds are, as they 
have not had the experience, first of their parents’ lessons in looking out 
for danger, or learning to shift for themselves in the matter of food when 
quite young. If the “chipped egg ” system is found impossible to carry out, 
I am inclined to think that the best alternative plan is to hatch those eggs 
that are cut out or laid in dangerous places under bantams in lots of 
fourteen, and turn them down when four or five days old in the standing 
corn with their foster parents. The result will be that many will join the 
neighbouring wild coveys, or be adopted by barren pairs, whilst the 
foster parents, if they escape the attention of foxes or vermin, on finding 
themselves deserted — ^will make their way to the nearest farm. 
Mr Alington says, and with reason, that when hunting for partridge 
nests, the keeper should begin his work as soon after daybreak as possible 
and finish this work not later than 10.30 a.m., for after that hour birds 
will begin to lay; he also mentions the interesting fact that they lay later 
each day, i.e., supposing the first egg was laid at 10.30 a.m., the second 
would be laid about 11 a.m., and so on. The period of incubation is about 
twenty -four days. 
Supposing the breeding stock to have sunk almost to vanishing point, 
or from the want of change of blood, those birds that are left have 
diminished in size and stamina, it is absolutely necessary to import 
fresh blood, and probably new and more energetic keepers. 
On a certain estate in the West of England a few years ago, the part- 
ridges had so deteriorated from continuous in -breeding that they were 
scarcely larger than blackbirds, the coveys being equally small in numbers. 
In such a case, it is almost imperative to take one of these courses: to 
import Hungarian partridges or Hungarian eggs, or to write round to all 
one’s friends who happen to own a partridge shooting, and ask them 
for a sitting or two of eggs. 
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