4^ Grey Partridge 



For the first four or five days, anv small accident will cause her 

 readily to forsake the nest, but after the first week is over, she is a 

 most resolute sitter and nothing in reason will make her desert. 

 It is a common thing when the\' are cutting clover with the machine 

 to cut over a Partridge's nest while the bird is sitting, and literally- 

 cut her in half with the blades of the clipper. Good keepers take 

 the greatest pains to ascertain what nests there are in the clover 

 field before it is cut, and the man on that beat is alwa}'s present at 

 the time of cutting. 



Sometimes the driver of the clipper, going round and round 

 in ever-decreasing circles, is able to see the bird flutter away from 

 the eggs as the machine passes close by, and then warns the keeper, 

 who mows out with a scythe a small patch of about a square yard 

 containing the nest, and to this patch the bird will almost always 

 return, if she is sitting hard, within the space of an hour, even though 

 she has to pass by half a dozen farm hands to reach her nest. 



The period of incubation is 24 days, rarelv extending to the 

 early part of the 25th day, but never less than 24. In the case of 

 the French Partridge, the period of incubation is only 23 days, and 

 the practical importance of this point was brought home to me many 

 years ago. I found a Frenchman's nest with five eggs in a very 

 unsafe position, and I took the eggs and placed them in a grey bird's 

 nest I knew of, which then contained 13 or 14 eggs, and was more 

 securely placed. The grey bird laid one or two more eggs and then 

 began to sit. On the 23rd day the five French chicks hatched out, 

 her own were just beginning to chip, and would, no doubt, have 

 hatched by the end of the next day. But the Grey bird, thinking 

 she had hatched all that were hatchable in her nest, went off with 

 the five French chicks, and left the 16 eggs of her own to perish. 

 This explains why we never see a mixed covey of French and English 

 chicks led by either English or by French parents, despite the fact 

 ' that French birds often lay eggs in the English nest, and vice versa. 



The sitting Partridge only leaves the nest for a short period, 

 generally in the early morning, but after the sun is well up, to feed, 

 and during this short absence, she makes no attempt to cover the 

 eggs. 



Nature has made a wonderful provision in the case of the 

 Partridge, and, indeed, all game-birds. These birds possess a very 

 strong scent, which enables dogs and innumerable enemies to hunt 

 them down with certainty ; and this scent is present for some eleven 

 months out of the twelve. During the period of incubation, the scent 

 is suppressed entirely, or so little is left, that you may take a first- 

 rate dog within a foot or two of a sitting bird over and over again, 

 and he will not evince the smallest interest in the locality. How this 

 suppression is effected I don't know, but I imagine it is in connection 

 with the digestive organs ; at any rate, it is an absolutely essential 

 provision, as, without it, no amount of protection could save the 

 ground-breeding game-birds from complete extermination. 



