A partridge manor, to have a good head on it, though, must be well looked after, the vermin kept down, and your keeper with a sharp eye to all poachers and suspicious characters.
With a net at night they often sweep off the birds wholesale; but there is a very easy way of baffling them. Put sticks, about eighteen inches high, fifteen, twenty, or thirty yards apart, over the ground the partridges generally roost on; these, as the net is drawn along, lift it up, and the birds easily escape.
It is a good plan to walk the fields of an evening with a brace of dogs, where you know they roost, and disturb them; they may probably then take to the gorse, if any, potatoes, seed clover, and other safe ground.
In May and June I wage war with the crows, magpies, jays and hawks, shooting or trapping the old hen birds. Always kill the male bird first; this is easily done by waiting patiently within shot, under cover of some tree or hedge where the nest is, which is generally built in some pretty high tree; the hen will not desert if sitting hard, which you should allow her to do; her death is then easily accomplished.
I never allow poison to be used, for I hold that a keeper who cannot destroy all vermin by means of his gun and traps is not worth his wages.
To have any quant.i.ty of game, it is better that you and your keepers should be on good terms with your neighbours; they will do as much good as half a dozen watchers.
In May and June I always keep a lot of light broody hens ready to sit, for during the mowing season many partridge nests are cut out. The eggs are brought warm to me, and are instantly set under one of the hens.
The people who bring me in the eggs I invariably reward, but they are never encouraged or allowed to look for nests. Now, if these men were not paid a trifle, and a horn of ale given to them, they would not trouble themselves or lose their time. It would be very easy to put their foot on the eggs and crush them.
I am not an advocate for hand-reared birds, as there is some trouble and expense feeding them, and they do not grow strong and vigorous nearly so quickly as wild ones.
In one year alone, some four or five seasons back, I had six hundred eggs cut out, and over five hundred birds were reared.
Chamberland"s food is the best for them, as well as for pheasants.
Of course the hens should be cooped. There is one thing you must be most particular about, and that is never to place the coops near an old bank, or where there are rabbit-burrows, for these spots are not only the haunts of stoats and weasels, but there is an animal quite as dangerous, who loves a young partridge--the hedgehog. Many are of opinion that the hedgehog is harmless, but this idea I have proved to be erroneous (see "Over Turf and Stubble"--"The Hedgehog a Game-eater").
My life has been spent following up the sports of the field and observing the habits of different animals.
The better way is, when your birds are young, to have them on your lawn, or in a field close to the house.
The coops must be closed at night, to keep vermin and cats (deadly poachers) from getting at them. It is a mistake to let them out too early of a morning. The drier the ground the better partridges do when young. As they get stronger, remove them with their coops to a potato or clover field, cutting a swath through the latter to put the coops on and feed them. Place the coops twenty or thirty yards apart, or the birds, when young, will be straying into the wrong coops, and the hens will kill them, for they well know their own family.
I like a clover-field the best, because there is lots of cover, and they escape the sharp eye of hawks and other vermin.
In taking a partridge manor, ascertain first, by going over it _yourself_, if there is a fair head of breeding stock on the ground.
A wise "old saw" informs us that, "if you want anything done well, do it yourself;" and this I certainly advise in this case, unless you have a keeper you can really trust.
Do not take a manor that has too much gra.s.s land. There ought to be plenty of cover--turnips, clover, potatoes, rape, stubble, heath, &c., to insure good sport; for, if your ground is bare, although you may have plenty of birds, it will soon be impossible to get at them, for, as you enter a field, they will be away at the other end, and not having any cover to drive them to, you may follow them for hours and never get a shot.
A manor, too, should not be all low ground, or the enclosures too small. In such a country, good, fast and free-going dogs soon become cramped in their range and potterers. It is, in an enclosed country, impossible to mark the birds; and constantly getting over stiff fences not only tires you, but it unsteadies your hand, which will lose its cunning.
A partridge country should be as open as possible; then you can see your dogs work, which, in my humble opinion, const.i.tutes the greatest charm of shooting.
Farms are often let at eighteenpence an acre, which is an absurd price--a shilling is quite enough; but in many counties you can get as much good ground as you like at sixpence, but not near London. I hired, some two years ago, some capital rough shooting in North Wales at less than threepence an acre, but it was too cold for my better half to reside in during the winter months. Whatever county you may fix on, avoid the red-legs; though a very handsome bird, and much larger than ours, they are not nearly so good for the table as the grey ones, being dry and tasteless; and they will spoil any dog, as they never take wing unless hardly pressed, but will run field after field. I destroy their eggs wherever I meet them.
In Norfolk, Suffolk, and particularly Ess.e.x, there are large quant.i.ties of them; they not only ruin your dogs, but they drive the grey birds away. I would not have a manor where there were any quant.i.ty of red-legs at a gift.
Having now told you how to go to work, I will, in the garb of narrative, which, nevertheless is true, show you how shooting, with other sport, may be had at little cost by those who love it and prefer a country life. I give it you as related to me by a very dear old friend of mine.
"Lenox and myself were boys at school, and afterwards at college together. A fine handsome fellow he was too, and doatingly attached to all field sports; he was not a rich man, quite the contrary, 300 a year at his father"s death was all he had left to him, yet he managed to keep up a tolerable appearance even in London, and was engaged to one of the most beautiful girls I ever saw, and with a nice little fortune of her own.
"Lenox was very fond and very proud of her, as well he might be; everything was arranged, the day fixed, trousseau bought, and his pretty little cottage in Hampshire newly and tastefully furnished to receive its new mistress. But, lo! a week before their wedding the young lady eloped with a n.o.bleman, and they were married before Lenox knew anything about it.
"He said little, but felt it deeply; all were sorry for him, for he was a great favourite.
"Shortly after his pretty little cottage was sold, and with his effects Lenox vanished mysteriously no one knew whither.
"I went abroad, and was away many years, and, therefore, had no means of finding out where he had betaken himself to, or what he was doing.
"After more than twenty years" absence I returned to the old land; I had been satiated with sport of all kinds in different parts of the globe, and did not feel inclined to give the high prices asked for shootings.
"My wife was somewhat delicate, and required a mild climate, so I took "the galloper," ran down to Plymouth, and from thence to Cornwall, determined, if I could, to buy a place there. I roamed about the country looking at different estates, and at last hit on a beautiful spot, with a nice house on it, convenient to the rail, and not too far from a good country town or schools.
"One day during my peregrinations with the agent who had the selling of the property, I came on one of the most lovely little cottages I ever saw, placed on a slope, well sheltered from the winds, myrtles and fuchsias growing luxuriously and abundantly about, with its jessamine and honeysuckle covered porch, thatched roof, well-kept grounds, gardens, and brawling stream at the end of the lawn. I thought it one of the most fairy-looking little spots I had ever seen.
""Whose cottage is that?" I asked. "It is not on this property, is it?"
""Oh, no, sir, just off this land; it belongs to Mr Lenox."
""Lenox," I breathlessly asked, "Horace Lenox"?
""That"s it, sir--one of the nicest gentlemen in these parts, and a rare sportsman: it is not his own property, only hired on long lease, but he has done a deal to it; three thousand acres of good mixed shooting and capital fishing, with that cottage, is not dear at fifty pounds a year, is it, sir?"
""I should think not, indeed. Mr Lenox is one of my oldest friends. I must go and call on him," which I did.
"I was told, on asking at the door, that he was out fishing, but would be home to dinner at six o"clock.
""Give him this card," I said to the respectable old servant who had answered the ring, "and tell him, I shall be here at six to dine with him. Is he married?"
""Oh dear no, sir, master is a single gentleman. I don"t think he cares much about the women folk," she added, in her quaint Cornish way.
"The time hung heavily on my hands that day, so impatient was I to see my dear, valued old friend, and half past five saw me walking up the well-kept walk towards his house.
"As I approached, a figure issued from the porch, surrounded by four or five beautiful setters.
"A fine, handsome-looking man of three or four and forty advanced towards me, but quite grey; there was no mistaking, though, his honest, beaming, well-known face.
""Frederick, old fellow," said he, grasping me by the hand, "this is indeed kind of you; hundreds of times have I wondered what had become of you, and if you were still in the land of the living."
""And I the same, Lenox; by mere chance have I found you out. I inquired at all the old haunts when I returned to England, and could never learn where you were."
""Then you are the gentleman, I suppose, that has been looking at the estate next to me, with a view to purchase?"
""Just so, Horace, _ecce h.o.m.o_."
""You could not do better, old fellow; I will put you in the way. I know every inch of the ground--rare shooting--but come in, and I will tell you all about it after dinner. Margaret, my servant, is in the devil"s own way, for it is rarely I ever have any one to dine with me."
"The inside of the cottage was just as pretty as the outside; his dining-room was a study for a sportsman: guns, rods, sporting pictures, &c., here hung all round the walls in endless profusion; it was the very essence of comfort and taste.
""Now, Horace," said I, as I threw myself into one of the comfortable arm-chairs beside the open window, and he into another, "tell me all that has happened since we last met."