med have un for sixpence,' he says, and
produces a partridge into whose body the point of the scythe ran as she
sat on her nest in the grass, and whose struggles were ended by a blow
from the rubber or whetstone flung at her head. He has got the eggs
somewhere hidden under a swathe.

The men that are so expert at finding partridges' eggs to sell to the
keepers know well beforehand whereabouts the birds are likely to lay. If
a stranger who had made no previous observations went into the fields to
find these eggs, with full permission to do so, he would probably wander
in vain. The grass is long, and the nest has little to distinguish it
from the ground; the old bird will sit so close that one may pass almost
over her. Without a right of search in open daylight the difficulty is
of course much greater. A man cannot quarter the fields when the crop is
high and leave no trail.

Farmers object to the trampling and damage of their property; and a
keeper does not like to see a labourer loafing about, because he is not
certain that the eggs when found will be conscientiously delivered to
him. They may be taken elsewhere, or they may even be broken out of
spite if the finder thinks he has a grudge to repay. Now that every
field is enclosed, and for the most part well cultivated and looked
after, the business of the egg-stealer is considerably diminished. He
cannot roam over the country at his fancy; his egg-finding is nearly
restricted to the locality of which he possesses minute knowledge.

Thus workmen engaged in the towns, but sleeping several miles out in the
villages, can keep a register of the slight indications they observe
morning after morning as they cross the fields by the footpath to their
labour. Early in the spring they notice that the partridges have paired:
as time advances they see the pair day after day in the same meadow, and
mark the spot. Those who work in the fields, again, have still better
opportunities: the bird-keeping lads too have little else to do at that
season than watch for nests. In the meadows the labourer as he walks to
and fro with the 'bush' passes over every inch of the ground. The 'bush'
is a mass of thorn bushes fixed in a frame and drawn by a horse; it acts
like a light harrow, and leaves the meadow in strips like the pile of
green velvet, stroked in narrow bands, one this way, one that, laying
the grass blades in the directions it travels. Solitary work of this
kind--for it requires bu