Chapter XII: Part 12

Whether this protection by the wits assists birds on their nests at all, and if so, as much as the loss of scent does, is too wide a question to enter upon here. It is only necessary to remark upon that subject that partridge preservation is to be divided, broadly speaking, into two systems: first, that which protects birds against foxes; second, that which is not called upon to add this heavy duty to the keeper’s ordinary business.

Roughly generalising, it is only in Norfolk and Suffolk where the keepers are not troubled with the fox question, and consequently it is only there that partridges can be safely left alone to find their own salvation. But this system can go too far even in those favoured counties, and naturally we find energetic shooters who try all round, declaring that Norfolk and Suffolk are “played out.” As a matter of fact, the very ease of preservation in those counties has done them a great deal of comparative injury, because, while they have been going back, or at least standing still, other counties have been going ahead in a wonderful manner. Probably the progress made in Nottinghamshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, and Cambridgeshire is far greater than anything done in the Eastern Counties, compared with what the respective stocks were in those districts twenty-five years ago.

The first phenomenal partridge preservation and the first break away from the system of letting birds preserve themselves occurred at Elvedon in the sixties of last century. Then large numbers of partridges were reared by hand on that estate, and at the same time, or a little later, a great many people began to rear partridges by hand. One of these was Lord Ducie, in Oxfordshire. The plan adopted there was to exchange pheasants’ eggs for those of partridges with anyone who would bring the latter; consequently, it may be said that Lord Ducie was one of the first men to prefer partridge shooting to covert shooting. Now, on the contrary, a very great many people set the partridge up as the first game bird, and his popularity is growing.

But to return to the hand rearing of partridges: the difficulty of this business is twofold. First, it is generally believed that the birds must be fed with ants’ eggs to make a success. Second, it is asserted that tame bred partridges “pack,” and that without old birds to lead them these packs are likely to travel for miles and be lost to those to whom they belong.

The first charge against hand rearing is not exactly true, because Lord Ducie’s keeper succeeded in rearing large quantities of partridges without the use of ants’ eggs. The author as a boy and in an amateurish way reared birds about the same period, but by the use of ants’ eggs, and consequently that experience does not go for much, because there is no difficulty in the task where plenty of these insects are to be found to feed the birds entirely for the first six weeks.

The trouble arises when there are some ants’ eggs but not enough to go round, for this food has the effect of setting the young birds against everything else. Lord Ducie’s partridges were mainly fed upon meal of some kind, although the writer forgets what it was. Another precaution that was taken was to distribute the coops very widely along the sides of corn-fields, and there is no doubt that this plan obliged the birds to hunt for insect food at a much earlier age than if they had been kept upon ants’ eggs. Unfortunately, the chicks will not eat the ants themselves; otherwise the getting of ant-hills to cart to the birds would go three times as far as it does, for there are generally twice as many wingless ants as there are eggs to every nest.

The second charge against these tame birds is that they grow too wild in packs and fly right away, and this is a fact beyond all dispute. However, it has been said that cock partridges will sometimes take to young birds reared by hens, if the bachelor partridges are themselves penned in the neighbourhood when the little chicks are first carried from the sitting boxes to the coops. There appears here to be a possible future for hand rearing without its old disadvantage of packing. Probably most people will think that the cock partridge is better occupied in assisting his own proper mate to raise the very big coveys that are now manufactured by the joint efforts of birds and keepers.

This partnership arrangement came about when the keeper at The Grange discovered how easy it was, with proper precautions, to make up the nests of _sitting_ partridges to 20 or more eggs. The result of this was that, although eggs had for many years been changed during the laying period, to effect cross breeding, it now became possible to employ the partridges themselves to do the work of foster-mothers—a vocation that farmyard hens had only half performed hitherto, and done their part badly. All destroyed nests, as well as those that looked likely to be destroyed, could now have their eggs hatched without the intervention of those fowls that always want to start laying again just as they are most desired to keep their foster game chicks from “sowing wild oats.”

Obviously The Grange plan would not have been of much use had not a very careful record been kept of when each bird began to sit; for it was necessary that eggs added after the laying season should only be those in precisely the same advanced state of incubation as those already in the nest. Someone has said that the cock bird goes off with the first chicks hatched, and leaves the hen to manage the other eggs; but this is not so, and if added eggs are twenty-four hours behind the others they will generally be left unhatched in the nest.

Probably all the great partridge estates have advanced as far as this. It marks the time at Holkham in the north of Norfolk as well as Orwell Park in the south of Suffolk. But although these two estates are hard to beat in the matter of big days, the partridge yield is not the highest per acre on either of these celebrated estates, and never has been. At Holkham about 8000 birds on 12,000 acres is the most that has been done. At Orwell 6000 birds upon 18,000 acres is not regarded as bad. Both of these estates are considered the best possible land for partridges, and both of them have also the advantage that foxes are particularly scarce in the districts of Norfolk and Suffolk. No Hungarian birds have ever been used at Holkham, although eggs are exchanged for fresh blood. At Orwell this method is also practised, and as many as 1000 eggs in a season have been obtained from Cumberland and Hampshire, by exchange with Sir R. Graham and Lord Ashburton. Nests are made up to 20 eggs at Orwell, and occasionally eggs are placed under hens until hatched, when the young birds are given to old partridges on the point of hatching out. But here the appearance of the old sitting birds is relied upon to indicate when that time comes. Thus, when two partridges are seen sitting on the same nest, it is taken for granted that the egg-chipping stage has been reached.

Holkham has been the most famous partridge estate for a century, but much of this fame is owing to the fact that it is a very large estate, naturally well suited for game, and especially for partridges. Besides this, it was one of the first upon which partridge driving was practised, and this method seems to have raised the stock by double. At the same time, the system of only using the same beat once in the season limits the kill enormously.

This estate has beaten all previous records for a single day’s shooting by a bag of 1671 birds in 1905. Naturally the thought at once occurs that the Holkham _must_ be the best system; but when we understand that this beat is made upon 2000 acres in 20 drives to 8 guns, and that this is the total season’s bag of the very best beat in the very best partridge land in England, and remember also that on 8000 acres of the best land only 4749 birds were bagged as the whole season’s work, but all in four days, the question arises, What would Holkham do in the season if it were subjected to the most modern methods of preservation?

Another splendid estate for game, and one similar to Holkham in size and dryness of land, is Euston. The Duke of Grafton has in a letter to the _Times_ repudiated the idea that partridges are preserved at Euston by the plan adopted there for pheasants. On the contrary, the partridge preserving at Euston has been of the same character as elsewhere in Norfolk and Suffolk. The ill-named “Euston plan” was not wanted there for partridges, and was applied only to pheasants, and to them not as has been very often described. The great difference between the Euston pheasant system and the latest method with partridges, erroneously described and applied to Euston, is that in the case of pheasants at Euston the birds are not kept sitting on sham or bad eggs while their own are being incubated. They are, according to the Duke’s letter, allowed to sit on their own eggs, and when the latter are chipping they are given more eggs in the same forward condition—such eggs as have been picked up out of destroyed nests.

The system that is not employed at Euston, then, either for partridges or pheasants, is that in which the period of incubating is _shortened_ for the wild bird by picking up all her eggs as laid and incubating them under barndoor poultry.

By this latter plan the period of incubation of any individual bird can be pretty nearly what the keeper wishes it to be, and its length will greatly depend upon the number of foxes, the nature of the soil, and the situation of the nests. The success of this system on Mr. Pearson Gregory’s property in the great fox-hunting county of Lincolnshire was perhaps the origin of ill-naming the plan after Euston, and came about because of Mr. Pearson Gregory’s tenancy of Euston.

That the minor assistance should have enabled 6000 wild pheasants to be killed at Euston per annum is sufficiently remarkable, and is a fact due to the objection of the Duke of Grafton to hand rearing, and to the initiative of the clever Euston keeper, who found a middle course that turned out even better than hand rearing. But in the absence of foxes, as Lord Granby has remarked, the soil breeds game at Euston, and it is not to be supposed that the same system would suffice either upon a clay soil where rain could drown out the nests or where foxes abound. For such districts the essence of the new plan is the shortening of the incubating period, or the “clear” egg system. The clear eggs used are necessarily, and unobjectionably, pheasants’ eggs, as those of partridges should not exist, and when they do exist are discovered too late to be of any use for that season.

It was probably in the Newmarket district of Cambridgeshire where the system of the short incubation period for partridges was first put into practice; for, as has been observed, there is no such great need of it in the sandy soils of Norfolk and Suffolk, which drain themselves, and besides have not to contend with foxes. Possibly Stetchworth was one of the first, if not the actual first, estate where it became a recognised practice to take eggs and keep the birds sitting upon clear pheasants’ eggs until a number of 25 partridges’ eggs were chipped and ready to place under the sitting bird, which might have been sitting but ten days instead of the usual twenty-four. On various occasions this plan has been described as if it were new, and an emergency plan, at Stetchworth in 1905; but that is by no means the case, as it is the plan by which the most hostile forces of nature in the shape of bad seasons have been rendered comparatively harmless. Any plan that permits bags of about 500 birds and upwards per day to be made for many days, and in spite of such seasons as the last five, three of which were wet and the fourth and fifth bad with thunderstorms, must be wonderful.

Not content with the short incubation system, Lord Ellesmere has tried every other at Stetchworth. Hungarian partridges in small quantities have been attempted, and also the French system of preservation by pairing birds in pens. When the author last heard about the latter system, the results were not to be compared for a moment with those of the real wild birds assisted by the short incubation plan.

Another place where all the systems have been tried (except the French, as far as is known to the writer) is Rushmore, in Wilts, where Mr. Glen Kidston has achieved a revolution in partridge preservation and vermin killing. He is a believer in making it the keeper’s business to keep down rats, and as a matter of fact that is another lesson that Norfolk and Suffolk might learn from less naturally favoured counties. Where this business is left to the farmers it is not properly done. As the keepers have killed nearly 5000 rats in a season at Rushmore, it goes without saying how the partridges’ eggs would have fared had these horrible creatures been left to raid upon them. Unquestionably the greatest service that keepers can ever do to farmers is to keep down rats. Hand rearing and Hungarian eggs have been largely employed at Rushmore, where there are plenty of ants’ eggs for all comers, and plenty of space in which to distribute the partridge coops in turnip-fields, and it is said not close enough together to make “packing” a thing to be feared.

The principle that numbers bring disease is not feared at Rushmore, for although as many as 1200 hand-reared birds were lost in a few days in 1904, the next season saw better results than ever.

The Duke of Portland has converted his Welbeck property of light limestone subsoil into a great partridge district, and has employed large quantities of Hungarian birds to effect the change, having turned out as many as 1200 birds at one time. Like Rushmore, the Duke’s property is not well watered, and there is no doubt whatever that running or stagnant water is not necessary to young partridges when at large. At any rate, there are a number of very fine partridge estates on which it would be quite impossible for the birds to drink, except the dew, until they were able to delight in flights of three-parts of a mile. At Moulton Paddocks, near Newmarket, Mr. F. E. R. Fryer, who is as admirable as a preserver as he is as a shot, supplies pans of water in his fields for the partridges. He adjoins those great shootings of Chippenham and Cheveley, and as he has scored nearly 1½ birds to the acre, or 700 birds on 500 acres in the year, his management must be beyond reproach. That is more than twice as many birds per acre as at Lord Leicester’s fine place, Holkham; but then with such neighbours as Mr. Fryer has, it is a less difficult task to keep a very high stock on a small than upon a large place.

In Oxfordshire, Mr. J. F. Mason, of Eynsham Hall, has reverted to the system that his neighbour Lord Ducie practised in the Chipping Norton district in the sixties of last century. That is, he breeds large quantities of partridges by hand; but the wet destroyed his chances in 1905.

In Scotland, Sir John Gladstone has had admirable success with Hungarian eggs, and Sir William Gordon Cumming has tried the French system on a larger scale than most people. At Stetchworth the partridge keepers have no pheasant rearing to do; and of course this is the case where there are no pheasants reared by hand, as at Euston in Suffolk and Honingham in Norfolk. At the latter place, Mr. Fellowes, lately Minister of Agriculture and a great farmer, makes his estate of 4500 acres yield nearly 3000 partridges, and also 1200 _wild bred_ pheasants. In the New Forest, Lord Montague manages to kill about 4000 more pheasants than he rears by hand, and there is no doubt that the latest phase of preservation is directly opposite to that of ten and fifteen years ago, when the keepers did everything possible for the pheasants and practically nothing for the partridges.

Crosses with the Mongolian pheasants have been tried in many places, and they are everywhere reported easy to rear,—some people have said as easy as chickens,—but they have not been tried, as far as is known to the author, in the wild state, and whether the ease of rearing by hand will be confirmed in that state of nature will make very much difference to the future of pheasant preserving. On the other hand, several people have reported that the cross-bred Mongolian birds drive away the common birds from the food, and for this reason they will not be continued in at least one quarter. At the same time, they are said to fly higher than the birds we have already, but that again is not much of a recommendation, since our pheasants can be made to fly high enough by judicious handling, and no pheasants will fly high unless circumstances compel them to do so.

The author believes that the map system of partridge preservation was originated by Marlow, the keeper at The Grange, in Hampshire, and it is entirely due to this plan that the Euston system with the pheasants, and the short incubation system with partridges, as practised at Stetchworth, was made possible. The map is an important item in the organisation of preservation on this last-named estate, where, amongst other eggs that are carried out to partridges sitting on unfertile pheasants’ eggs, are a number of chipped Hungarian partridges’ eggs. This plan of mixing the Hungarian eggs with those of the home birds is the best and surest way of effecting a cross of blood in the following year.

It would not be wise to compare Stetchworth bags with those of Holkham, because the conditions are so different. At the former a day consists of a dozen drives, at the latter of about 22, or that was the number when the record 4749 in four days was made. Then Lord Leicester and Lord Coke appear to select guns for their deadliness, whereas Lord Ellesmere generally has a family party. Besides this, probably few people would consider the soil of The Six Mile Bottom district, which is the adjoining shooting to Lord Ellesmere’s Stetchworth property, to be equal to that of Norfolk and Suffolk as natural game country. At any rate, even in the 1905 dry year, a great many partridges were driven off their nests by a three days’ rain and deserted, some of them entirely, others only for a few days. Here the system was equal to the occasion, for those that came back to the clear pheasants’ eggs were given chipped partridges’ eggs to go off with, and those that did not had only deserted bad pheasants’ eggs in some cases, and when it was otherwise the keepers were there to save the situation, for the nests and their low situations were indicated on the map.

It has been shown above that even hand rearing cannot be relied upon, as in Oxfordshire, to save the situation in spite of adverse elements; but the latest phase of partridge preserving is a combination of three methods—namely, 1st, the introduction of Hungarians; 2nd, the French system; and 3rd, artificial incubation. It has often been affirmed that the French system has failed badly in this country, but probably that is entirely due to want of carefulness in matters of the smallest detail. At any rate, Sir William Gordon Cumming makes each penned pair of Hungarians produce an average of 19 young. This is so remarkable and so satisfactory that it must be related in detail. In the first place, the matrimonial relations are never forced, but those birds that have refused to mate in the big pens where they have been since November are turned loose. The affections of the others having been under observation, each pair is removed to a circular pen of 27 feet diameter. It has been observed that when a hen bird dies the cock will generally take on her duties. The success obtained by this method of only three years’ standing is already quite wonderful, and the season of 1905 resulted in doubling the bags, and also in a much larger breeding stock being left. Sir William Gordon Cumming believes that given good weather the bag will again be doubled, so that there is reason to believe that there is, after all, no “best” about the new systems, but that a combination of all may be better than any. Sir William Cumming adds that after doubling his bag two years in succession he has left in the second more birds to breed than he usually commences the shooting season with.

The following are explanatory letters from Sir W. Gordon Cumming and his keeper:—

“ALTYRE, FORRES, N.B.
“26. 1. 06

“DEAR SIR,—I have adopted what is called the ‘French system’ of partridge rearing for the last two years. Formerly I used to buy 20 couple of Hungarians and turn them loose at different parts of my estate. I could see no appreciable difference in the result. I have now built a pen, 40 by 60 yards, into which I turn 60 couple Hungarians male and female in equal (?) proportions about the middle of November. A man is told off to feed and look after them. The birds are ‘brailed’ before being put in—_i.e._, a small specially constructed strap confines some of the upper wings—sufficient to prevent flight. The pen is supplied with gravel, bushes, water, etc., turfed 3 feet all round, and plentifully trapped outside. Rats and cats are to be dreaded. About the pairing-time the man in charge is constantly on the watch for any couple who appear to be inclined to matrimony—it is a mistake to think that any two birds will marry, they are extremely particular on the point, and many remain celibates altogether. Any amorous couple is quietly herded into one of two pens which are in the enclosure, and at once transferred to a separate establishment, where are some 30 small circular pens, about 27 feet in diameter, and there they reside till eggs result. The first lot of eggs is usually transferred to a hen; the next batch is looked after by the partridges themselves; occasionally a hen dies, when the cock will nearly always take up her duties. Any birds that refuse to pair are simply turned out. I calculate we averaged 19 young birds to every couple so treated last season. I commenced serious shooting late in September, and more than doubled my bag of last season, leaving on November 10, 1905, a larger stock of birds at expiration of the shooting season than I have usually commenced with. Of course we are largely dependent on fine weather at the time of hatching, and have been very lucky the last two years. If the fortune continues this year, I expect to nearly double my bag of last year. I have probably given you some information of which you are already quite aware. If I have neglected any point, I shall be glad to write you further; or if you would like to communicate with Mr. Bell, Gordonstoun, Elgin, N.B., my head keeper, he would doubtless be able to make clear certain points that do not strike me at present. I may mention that I have taken almost entirely to driving birds—a system rarely, if ever, adopted on many estates elsewhere in the neighbourhood hitherto, and with marked success within a sporting view, and as regards result of the day. But we have much to learn in this respect, and I think a little more experience would have been beneficial in many ways.

“My Hungarians are supplied by Major C. Ker Fox, and have always turned up in good condition; any found dead or weakly on arrival, he readily replaces. I have shot Hungarian birds in their own country, and never thought I could detect any difference between them and our own: last year’s batch, however, were much redder in colour than any I have previously seen.—Yours very faithfully,

“(Signed) W. GORDON CUMMING”

“GORDONSTOUN, ELGIN
“_Sept. 29th, 1906_

“G. T. TEASDALE-BUCKELL, Esq.

“SIR,—As regards our method of increasing partridges, I will try and explain, and answer your questions as well as I can. I have no hesitation in saying to get up a large stock our system is the best. I say this after many years’ experience with partridges.

“1. Do I pick up first-laid eggs? _No_, unless she lays more than 24, then I reserve them for another nest; sometimes I allow them 26, not more.

“2. Yes, she would lay again; but I believe strongly in early chicks. [This is an answer to a question as to whether the hen would lay again after beginning to sit.—The Author.]

“3. I don’t take them gradually, or at any time, unless they lay 30 or 40, as they sometimes do; then I take them after they have laid 24, or not until they sit or brood.

“4. Our success this season (1906) is almost 19 to the brood.

“5. I have not tried an unpaired cock partridge to take chicks, but I think he will, as the ones I tried had lost their partners long before I tried them: this was always successful.

“6. How to obtain the average turn-out of chicks. Some birds lay more than they are able to hatch; these eggs are given to barndoor fowls along with other eggs that are laid outside, by wild birds, on roadsides and dangerous places: these eggs are given to the fowls _only_ on the _days_ that the _partridges_ in the _pens_ start to _brood_, so that they hatch out at the _same time_. Say one hen broods June 1st, you can make her up in the way I have stated by setting 4 or 6 eggs on the same date under a fowl, according to the number (as you like) the partridge has. You can put more eggs in below fowl next day, if 3 or 4 partridges have then brooded. This is the great advantage: there is no waste of eggs on a partridge estate. I could turn out 30 chicks to the brood, only I think 18 or 20 quite sufficient. Without outside help at all, with eggs that are over-laid in pens, the coveys will easily run from 16 to 18 to a brood. This is not a hay-growing place, but if any nests were going to be spoiled by the cutting of hay they can all be put to account by this system.

“In wet weather you can turn out chicks on dry ground.

“On large estates I would give each keeper 10 or 12 pens for the paired birds; this would give them an interest, and greatly help their show on shooting days.

“Sir William must have grasped a wrong idea about me taking away her [partridge’s] first consignment of eggs. I interfere as little as possible with them and their nests at that time. To take away their first eggs would throw them too late; this would mean probably three weeks later, or thereabouts.

“When I said I have had a large experience with partridges I did not mean in this system, but I have always been among partridges and have seen lots of plans tried, but I am convinced this is the best.—I remain, same time sir, your obedient servant,

“(Signed) ROBERT BELL”

One word must be added to the above letters: it is not safe to rely on imported Hungarian, and home produced, partridges’ eggs hatching in the same number of days; the former will often take the longer.

PARTRIDGE BAGS AND DRIVING

In the foregoing chapter it has been shown to what point the greatest bag of partridges in a day has arrived in England. But more than double the number of these birds has been killed in one day in Bohemia. The biggest bag there has been 4000 in one day. The method of preserving adopted there is to make an outlying estate serve as an assistance to an inner preserved portion. But it is not, as has been thought, to catch up birds and bring them in for a day’s shooting, as was done by Baron Hirsch in Hungary. The birds may be caught up and brought in to breed, or the eggs from outlying ground may be brought in to fill up nests. In either case that is merely the English plan; but the author is assured that where the biggest bags are made no removal of coveys in the shooting season has occurred. The birds are fed in the winter, and herein lies the principal difference between our own and the Continental system of preservation. The snow there lies for weeks, and to keep the birds alive wheat is given to them; but the Hungarian and Bohemian preserves conclusively upset one notion that has got firm hold in this country. They beat us very easily in partridge productiveness, and they do it without driving. Of course Baron Hirsch’s big bags were made by driving, but his was a system foreign to the country, and has been fairly beaten by different methods that are generally employed. The big bags are mostly made by a system of walking up the partridges in the corn. The author, then, is constrained to look for other than driving reasons for the increase of partridges, and he wholly agrees with Mr. Charles Alington in saying that the reason driving increases partridges is because preservers who drive the birds are not satisfied with the stocks of partridges that previously did satisfy them. They cannot have any shooting at all unless there are enough birds to give a day to half a dozen friends; whereas before one covey gave sport, and would be followed all day by a couple of guns, until only its remnant was left to stock a farm or an estate. The author also agrees with Mr. Alington in saying that it is not because old birds are killed by driving that this system succeeds. Even where driving is practised, the keepers on some estates net the birds after the shooting season in order to break the necks of the old cocks and let off the young birds, which is quite enough proof that driving is not an automatic selection of old cocks. The latter should be killed, for the reason, that they occupy for themselves five or ten times the ground that will satisfy a young pair of birds. On one of these netting expeditions, Coggins, the clever head keeper at Acton Reynold, caught a woodcock, so that even a night bird may make a mistake in its most wakeful hours.

Mr. Alington described how one pair of very old partridges took sole possession of a fence and made their nest, which, by him, old birds are supposed to make earlier than young ones. He had these two birds destroyed, and then there were ten nests made in that fence. This partridge shooter also believes that no partridge lays before 10.30 a.m., and that she lays every day, and an hour or so later in the day with every egg. Probably this is not a fixed rule. It would involve a midnight egg, or a day missed, when there was a full nest to be laid.

Then it has been said that it is the “packing,” after driving, that does the good, of course by initiating cross breeding; but for forty years at least gamekeepers have been changing eggs from nest to nest and from estate to estate, so that packing would be merely re-mixing those that had already been separated by the gamekeepers.

The greatest assistance given by driving is probably the greater freedom from wounds of the driven bird. The old bad days, when we killed all the birds that would lie, and shot at all the others, were bad, because there was no other way of getting a bag of wild birds; but probably if nobody had ever tried to do so there would have been plenty of partridges. In other words, it was bad shooting that destroyed the stock. But more than this, partridge driving is liked; it has caused much greater attention to be paid to the partridge than ever before, because it is so much better sport than turnip-trotting, and so much more bag-filling than shooting over the majority of show-bred or show-dog crossed pointers and setters. It takes a very good dog indeed to please in a turnip-field and to render it unnecessary to form line to beat up the partridges. Besides that, driving is a social amusement, whereas shooting over dogs is only good when there are but two guns or less. The popularity of the big day extends to beaters, farm hands, and farmers, whereas for the old method these people were merely tolerated. Toleration did not assist preserving; popularity does so.

Although a swerving covey of English birds will present a task fit for a king, there are very many very easy driven birds, including the majority of straight-coming Frenchmen. Besides this, the position of the shooter makes them easy or difficult as the case may be. Put too close under a high fence, the birds are difficult; put farther back, they swerve, or turn back over the beaters. When standing up to quite low fences, the chances are very easy, and when the sun is in one’s eyes they are too difficult for sport. The most beautiful shooting is when some birds come over, and some between, a row of high elm trees such as one frequently sees in the Midlands, but less often in the Eastern Counties.

There is no more beautiful sport than shooting partridges over good dogs, and it is easy to get them good enough for the work in wild country, where they are almost exclusively employed, but it takes brains as well as nose and pace for a dog to be a help to the two guns in turnips a couple of feet high, and such as contain a hundred thrushes, blackbirds, leverets, rabbits, and pheasant poults to every covey of partridges. It is true that if shooters in line, for sentimental reasons, have a pointer running loose, they may call it shooting over dogs, and any sort of animal will do for that, even if he is a dog show Champion; but that is not what the author means by shooting over dogs.

If you have a line of guns to tread up the game, dogs are superfluous. If you have dogs that can find everything, then a line of beaters is superfluous, and besides in the way, too, for it makes birds wild.

Noise is often said to make partridges wild, but this is only partially true. Noise in any one direction, such as talking, generally makes them fly, but any noises heard from all directions simultaneously makes them lie like stones.

No country is so difficult to drive as one with small fields and high hedges, especially if it is also hilly. It is almost impossible to make the partridges know that there is a line of beaters outside of their own little field, and they are very likely to go out at the flanks and swing back behind the beaters in the next field.

That the fox is the worst partridge poacher in the nesting season is not questioned by those who know; but the plan described in the previous chapter is a very good and the only way of securing many partridges in a fox country. Nevertheless, this plan has been written down in the press, obviously by interested people, who appear in all sorts of disguises in the interests of game-food makers, who are aware that if the Euston plan of pheasant preserving and the Stetchworth plan of partridge preserving were to be commonly practised, it would be all over with game-food manufacturers. The author first described the Stetchworth plan some time before Mr. Alington’s book appeared, in which he related Mr. Pearson Gregory’s wonderful success with partridges in the middle of the Belvoir country, where foxes abound. In place of this safeguard against foxes, futile attempts have put forward evil-smelling mixtures to protect the nests; but, as Mr. Alington and Mr. Holland Hibbert have shown, when foxes take one doctored nest they then hunt _for_ the smell, and in the experience of Mr. Alington the mixture was successful the first year, but in the next all the dressed nests were taken and the others left. That a large number of keepers may approve of evil-smell systems, and disapprove of the Stetchworth partridge, and the Euston pheasant, systems, has no weight with those who know that there are wheels within wheels, which can be specified if necessary.

That there are smells which destroy or negative others, the author is sure, but he has no belief in drowning one by the strength of another. No retriever can find a dead bird if a man stands close to leeward of the latter and to windward of the dog’s nose. Out of politeness to our race, we may consider this negatives the partridge scent and does not merely drown it, but then the deer do not support that view, and can smell a man much farther off than a foxhound can smell a fox. The question arises, What is a strong smell to a fox, a dog, or a deer?

A gamekeeper can (because he has done it at Harlaxton, in Lincolnshire) look after 1500 acres of partridge ground and get hatched off by the Stetchworth plan 1200 eggs, and do it single-handed, so that the expense that the interested critics of this system talk of does not exist.

The fox has just been condemned as a poacher, but all the same he is a great friend of partridge preservers, if they would only look ahead. The fox is the only influence in this country that prevents half of it becoming poultry runs. He takes his toll, and deserves it. Land will not afford more than a certain amount of insect life, and young partridges cannot live without it. If it were not for the foxes, nearly every farm and field would be a chicken run, and consequently wild bred partridges would be impossible.

On the other hand, if it were not for the game preserver, hunting would also be impossible in provincial countries and where money is scarce. No foxes could live if the fields were devoted to poultry. The farmer’s charges in the absence of game would cause three-parts of the hunts to be abandoned in face of enormous poultry bills. Half the quarrelling over game and foxes is exaggerated in the telling, and the rest is caused by a misunderstanding of mutual interests. Outside the Shires, and perhaps Cheshire and Warwickshire, hunting could not exist without the game preserver; and outside East Anglia and the grouse moors game could not exist without foxes, more especially partridges could not, at least not for long.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that grey partridges are interfered with by the red legs; of course, where dogs are used, red legs are not a blessing, but everywhere else they appear to greatly increase the sport. The two varieties often nest side by side, but the grey partridge cock would not tolerate any such proximity from his own species, so that the simplest plan of making two partridges grow on one acre is to have both sorts.

Straying away, in the winter and the spring, from cold or high ground, is a great and objectionable habit of partridges. On some estates nothing seems able to prevent it. In such cases the French penning system described in the previous chapter seems to be made on purpose.

The driving of partridges in flat country is very much more easy than grouse driving, on account of the hedges. They hide the beaters and the guns from view as both go to their places for short drives. But these same hedges often prevent proper flanking for long drives, and there are a thousand pitfalls ready for the inexperienced driver of partridges to fall into. Of course the chief factor in all driving plans is the wind, if there is any. Success generally comes to those whose minds and plans are the most flexible; for a plan that would be best one day would almost certainly be the worst upon another.

In a short chapter on partridges in general it would be obviously impossible to go into the minute details of driving, or to specify as many of the pitfalls as have come to the author’s notice. Broad principles briefly stated are all he has space for, and really almost everything else alters with the locality. First it is necessary to drive the birds with a view to their concentration. That is to say, every drive should be arranged in such a manner as to make the next drive to it as perfect as possible. The guns, then, will be posted where they can do least harm to the next drive—not necessarily where they can do most execution in the one under consideration. Consequently, the choice of stands for any one drive must be regulated by the distance the birds at the particular time of year are likely to fly after passing and being scared by the line of guns. This distance will grow longer each week of the shooting season. In September birds that would be likely to drop in roots three fields behind the guns, might easily go six, seven, or eight fields in November.

It is impossible to drive partridges very far directly up wind, and it is almost impossible to turn them very much when going fast and high down wind. Roots are even more important to big driving bags than they are to “walking up.” At least, without roots most of the birds will come together, and shooting will be quickly over in each drive, whereas, when partridges can be first driven into a turnip-field, and secondly induced to run, they then become scattered, rise in small lots, and give shooters and loaders a chance.

The nearer the guns can be placed to the rise of the partridges, the less distant the latter will fly. In a high fenced country noise is often essential to prevent the birds in one field going back over the heads of beaters in the next. The partridges generally decide where they are going before rising, or as soon as they are up, and consequently the flanks of your line or semicircle of beaters will be useless unless the birds know of them either before they rise or the instant they are on the wing.

Another point to be considered is, that partridges will not drive backwards and forwards over the same fence many times, and if it can be done, a fresh one should be lined for every drive. Often the nature of the ground and the disposition of the hedges will not admit of this. Ideal driving possibly only exists in the imagination, but if it can be arranged that for every drive there is a turnip-field to drive out of near to the guns, and another to drive into at the distance of the birds’ flight behind the guns, then particularly heavy killing ought to be possible in proportion to numbers of partridges present.

When there is no great amount of wind, backwards and forwards drives, with the guns shifted up or down the fence slightly each time, are very deadly with two sets of beaters. With one set only, on the contrary, the plan of taking the birds all round the beat in four or more drives, according to its size, is a good one, because it prevents either beaters or “guns” having long waits or unequal distances to walk. Excellent driving results have been obtained on an estate as small as 500 acres, but this would not be possible without big root fields.

The best sanctuaries for partridges, and those of greatest assistance to driving, are newly planted larch and fir coverts. Where estate planting is wanted, then by extending it over a series of years, instead of doing it all at once, it adds to the encouragement and to safe nesting-ground of partridges and pheasants too, but the necessity of wire fencing it against rabbits renders it of no use for ground game, which is all the better for both its true purposes. In a grass country partridges will remain and breed wonderfully well if about 5 acres of wheat are cultivated to every 200 acres of grass land. On just such land the author has killed two-thirds of a bird to the acre within twelve miles of Charing Cross on the north side.

Some of the Hungarian and Bohemian bags have been as follows:—In 10 days’ shooting 10 guns killed 10,000 partridges at Tot-Megyr, in Hungary, and the same season the first five of the ten days yielded 7020 partridges. This was on the estate of Count Karolyi. No birds were brought in from elsewhere, and the method adopted was _walking up_. But it was in Bohemia, at Prince Auersperg’s place, where 4000 birds were killed in one day, which leaves Baron Hirsch’s records, and all those of England, in the shade.

VARIETIES AND SPECIES OF THE PHEASANT

There are 21 so-called species of the true pheasant. Of these, 17 are only varieties, with practically no differences except in colour and size. Naturalists are not consistent in their classifications. If the 17 pheasants that include the common and the ring-necked variety are species, then all our fancy pigeons are species also, just as our numberless varieties of dogs are. The pouter and the fantail pigeons have more differences by far than any of these 17 kinds of pheasants, and the St. Bernard and the Japanese spaniel and Italian greyhound would all have been received as new species had their discoverers been naturalists. Indeed, the St. Bernard has structural differences from the others about which in any other class of animal naturalists would not hesitate for a moment. They would make a species of him for his extra toe—that is, for his double dew claw. But it does not in the least matter whether differences are marked in the index to nature as species or as varieties, since the former term has lost its original meaning, and no longer suggests a specific act of creation in the origin of things.

What matters is that the 17 varieties of pheasants are supposed to be capable of breeding together fertile offspring, no matter how they are mixed up.

But although crossing always increases size in the first few generations, and notwithstanding that every first cross amongst these 17 varieties of pheasants has been glorified in description, it is not to be expected that the cross breds maintain their glory in later generations. Unfortunately, they do not revert to one type or the other, but set up intermediate coloration.

There is no reason to suppose that the cock pheasant differs very much from the hen in the pigments within the feathers. The difference we observe is one of disposition of those pigments. In the hen the reds, the greens, the gold and purples are mixed; in the cock they are separated. In the 17 varieties of pheasants there are to be found cock birds which at every point of the feathering have the complementary colour to that which is in the same position in some other species. Even the dark edging of the feathers is in some races green and in the others purple. The backs are in some green, in others red; the breasts in some species golden, and in others green. One cannot object to the introduction of any of these 17 species so long as they are kept distinct. But we do not want our pheasants to look as variegated as a race of mongrels. The Mongolian pheasant is said to be more hardy than our own cross bred, and in that case it would probably suit us better as a bird of the coverts, but it drives away the other birds from the food, which is a good reason as well as its white wing coverts for not wishing to have it mixed with the home stock.

For some time it was believed that the Reeves pheasant would not produce fertile offspring from any of the 17 sorts typical of the common pheasant, but that is probably a mistake. Nevertheless, if it is true that the hybrids breed in the third season, any such deferred productiveness would not be likely to have the smallest effect on our pheasant stock, and consequently the Reeves pheasant can safely be turned out in the coverts without fear of changing the character of our good sporting birds. The same is true of the copper pheasant, which, in nature and Japan, exists side by side with the green-breasted versicolor, and does not inter-breed with it. As the versicolor breeds freely with our birds, and is but a variety in fact and only a species by courtesy of naturalists to each other, it is pretty certain that this copper pheasant, like the Reeves pheasant, can be safely turned loose in our coverts. But the Reeves pheasant is a great runner, and it is said that when he once does get started upon the wing he is apt not to recognise the boundary fence, and may go 20 miles on end. If this is not an exaggeration, and probably it is, the Reeves pheasant would be a most objectionable bird. But in wild countries like Wales and Scotland, where there are hills and hill coverts, there seems to be no doubt that the Reeves would beat the English bird, not only in hardihood and self-reproduction, but also in flying to the guns both faster and higher than the common pheasant. It is a bird that prefers to run _up_ hill, in contradistinction to the instinct of preservation that induces the type race of bird to run _down_ hill. The Hon. Walter Rothschild has spent more time and money on the pheasant family than anyone else, and probably he is the very best judge of what would acclimatise with advantage and what would not. With the reservation, then, that the author does not believe in still further mongrelising the half bred of our coverts, it is proposed to summarise Mr. Rothschild’s opinion.

The pheasants form but one section of the family Phasianidæ, the second of the four families of the Gallinæ. The limitations of natural history are set forth by Mr. Rothschild when he says that structurally it is impossible to separate the partridges and the pheasants, and that the spurfowls (_Galloperdix_) and the bamboo partridges (_Bambusicola_) form connecting links. How true this is may be gathered from the fact that Mr. Harting described a bamboo partridge in the _Field_ recently as a cross between a pheasant and partridge. These birds have spurs, but then the author has seen a common partridge with spurs on both legs. The legs were sent to _Country Life_ at the time, and the spurs upon them were sharp like a two-year-old pheasant’s. Of the pheasants there are 60 species according to naturalists, divided into 12 genera. Of these, _Phasianus_ with 21 species is the largest, and the only one which concerns sportsmen in this country. There are 17 of the varieties of the type pheasant, including the new species called after Mr. Hagenbach. There are 11 other birds called pheasants which properly belong to the peafowl. These include 7 peacock pheasants and 4 Argus pheasants, which, like many others amongst the 60 pheasants, do not fly well, and have no place in shooting. The true pheasants are distinguished by their long wedge-shaped tails and by the absence of a crest, but these have to be subdivided into the type birds that are really only varieties, and the four that are really as well as nominally different species.