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.