The Complete English Wing Shot

by George Teasdale Teasdale-Buckell

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.