PARTRIDGE REARING 
Borrowing eggs from one’s friends is the last resource, and is not a very 
satisfactory one. Few owners, and no keepers, care to give away their 
partridge eggs, but if two or three hundred can be obtained in this way, 
and they are fresh, they may be put in the wild nests and allowed to take 
their chance, but the following season there should be very light shooting. 
All these expensive and laborious methods may be prevented by 
judicious changing of eggs from one nest to another, and from different 
beats. Or still better by exchanging every year a certain number of eggs 
with friends. Even then each keeper is apt to think he has been done by 
the other, and that the eggs he sent away were far better than those he has 
received in exchange. 
(4) Keen and energetic keepers are very necessary. It is hardly fair to ex- 
pect a man to look after a large stretch of partridge ground and at the 
same time take his share of work in the pheasant -rearing field; he will 
be in the same predicament as the man who tries to serve two masters. 
If a keeper is to be successful with partridges he must get round his beat 
every morning to visit his nests. He must also visit his traps daily, and 
keep them going all the year. In addition to this he should be present 
when certain fields of young grass are cut, in case nests are cut out. He 
must also make it his business to be on good terms with both tenants and 
labourers on his beat. He should know if any of the latter are inclined to 
egging. 
A single barrelled Zeiss field -glass is of the greatest use to a keeper. 
It will save him an enormous amount of walking, and stalking suspicious 
looking people, and the fact that it is possible to be recognized and sworn 
to at the distance of over half a mile will often prove a wholesome deterrent 
to any man or woman who may think of looking for nests or snares. 
As already remarked, the keeper of the beat should know, as far as 
possible, every nest on it, and its history from the time the first egg is laid, 
until it is hatched out. It will then be possible for him to save many a nest 
that has met with some disaster, and to prevent a hedgehog, an old buck 
rat, or other vermin committing great depredation in any particular spot. 
(5) Last, and by no means least, there must be a favourable nesting 
and hatching season. Since 1906 the seasons have been disastrous, in the 
Eastern Counties especially, A cold spring will delay nesting operations, 
it will also delay the growth in hedge -rows, and render what eggs are laid 
likely to fall a prey to rooks, jackdaws, and carrion crows. Therefore a 
fairly warm May and June, with occasional showers, are most desirable. 
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