We need not think of the effect of frost on partridge eggs, for the birds cover their eggs when they leave them, until they are well on their way to hatching, with wonderful care, regularity, and thoroughness; and here they have the advantage of pheasants, which rarely cover their eggs when off the nest. Another advantage of the partridge is the hen's faithful mate—to help to shelter the brood from the weather and keep them warm. One bird might be able to manage this for fifteen little ones during their first week of life; but afterwards she could not possibly give the vital warmth to more than half her offspring. To the chicks of the pheasant hen a risky time is between the shedding of the soft fluffy down of infancy and the growth of feathers proof against cold and wet. Where pheasants have the advantage is that their hatching-time is spread over many weeks; so that whereas partridges may have their hopes ruined by a week or by a few days, or even a few hours of bad weather, the pheasants' hopes are never blighted while summer lasts.
It may be urged that if there are few young partridges there must be few young pheasants, and this to some extent is true. Though the breeding conditions of pheasant and partridge are very different, a bad season for one can hardly be a good season for the other. With partridges, the great trouble is that nearly all of them nest about the same time: where one brood suffers from bad weather, thousands must suffer. For ten days after hatching, partridges are at the mercy of the weather. Let one of those marble-sized drops of rain strike a newly hatched chick, and its day is done. As one sharp frost destroys all the apple-crop of a countryside, if it comes when the trees are in full bloom, so a deluge in mid-June is fatal to all young partridges. Even a day's thunder-rain, between the fifteenth and thirtieth of June, would almost excuse a partridge keeper if he committed suicide—though we have never heard of such a thing.
Heavy warm rain is bad enough—heavy cold rain is simply disastrous when it falls day after day, for weeks, from the time when most partridge eggs begin to hatch, until all except the second clutches are hatched—or flooded out. It is hardly worth considering whether the wet or the cold claims most victims: enough that if wet fails to bring about a tragedy, cold finishes the work. The sunless days, the everlasting rain, the drenching herbage, and the sodden soil wipe out most broods to a bird. It is not, as many suppose, a question of a good hatch that controls the supply for September, but it is simply a question of the weather for the first fortnight after hatching. Usually, if any eggs in a nest hatch, all the eggs hatch; but we may say that if only half the eggs in each nest hatched, and a fine fortnight followed, more birds would be reared than if every egg in each nest produced two chicks, and a drenching fortnight then set in.
In a wretched hatching season, the best luck is often with the intermediate early broods. They fare least badly. As to second nests, it never makes much difference to September's sport whether they prosper or not. A covey of a dozen, in a September following a wet June, is a good covey. The most general coveys are coveys of old birds—or coveys consisting of one young bird! There is no more reliable sign of a poor partridge crop than a good year for roots.
A Covey of Ancients
We remember how an experienced keeper was quite at sea in his judgment of a particular covey. It had been a bad season, and after the corn had been cut he knew of only one good covey; it numbered nine birds, and fine forward birds they were. On this covey he set great store against the coming of September. It happened that he was bidden to shoot a couple of brace of young birds for dinner at "the house" on the First. With his first shot at the covey he bagged the old cock. He pursued the rest of the covey, bagged another bird, also an old cock. Disappointed but still hopeful, again he pursued the covey, again he bagged another bird, and again it was an old cock that fell to his gun. He went on until he bagged the ninth and last bird, and the ninth was no better than all the others. It was a sad keeper who went home that day with his nine old birds. Ever since he has been sceptical about coveys of forward birds. But he always says now that foxes at least show gallantry in the matter of "ladies first."
Keepers' Woe
If June proves wet, despair reigns in the partridge keeper's breast. With hopeless eyes he looks forward to the coming season. One keeper of our acquaintance, one wet midsummer, a time when, in a promising season, he would have had no moment to spare from the care of his young birds, married, and went for a honeymoon. "Lor' love ye," said another, weary of June rain, "I might just as well 've bin in bed for a month past." A common remark made by keepers in a rainy June is the mournful plaint, "Ye don't see no feetmarks on the roads, but old un's."