CHAPTER LXXIX 



PARTRIDGES 



The English partridge frequents the marshland in small 

 numbers, though he is scarce, now that the marshes no 

 longer grow corn. 



Still a few are left, and in February you will see them in 

 pairs, though they do not nest until the middle of April, 

 when the hedgerows are green with newly-burnished leaves 

 of delicate green. 



At that season you may find dung and trails along the 

 crests of the sandhills by the ever-sounding sea, a pro- 

 menade beloved by the partridge, for there ants do abound. 

 Down by the broad-edge, too, where a shady planting fringes 

 the rush, is a favourite spot ; for there, too, in the soft moist 

 soil ants' eggs and grasshoppers are to be found in plenty. 



Partridges, like ducks, hesitate not much in building 

 a nest, a small hole scratched in the mould, sometimes 

 roughly bottomed with dead grass, at others bare as your 

 hand, suffices. Nor is she very choice in selecting a site 

 for her rude cradle — a cosy corner of a long grassy balk; 

 the top of a bank, thistle crested ; a cool ditch by the 

 white dusty road ; a corn marsh ; a grass marsh, where 

 the land buntings lay ; and at a pinch, the bare marsh 

 beneath a tuft of bracken or stuff. In all these places I 

 have seen the nest with the greenish eggs. Once I counted 

 twenty-one eggs in one nest. Indeed, they will choose 

 almost any spot with some cover overhead ; for when 

 flushed from the nest, she runs a yard or so, rises steadily 

 on the wing, dungs, and flies in a straight line, away from 



