III.- THE COMMON AND FRENCH PARTRIDGES— SOME 

 NOTES ON THEIR NATURAL HISTORY. AND ON 

 THEIR VALUE AS BIRDS OF SPORT. 



Possibly the majority of my readers may feel that some better 

 subject might have been chosen for a lecture than the Common and 

 French Partridges. Every one knows the Common Partridge — 

 dozens of books on ornithology describe its ways and habits — and 

 the same remark applies in a lesser degree to the French Partridge. 

 Why, then, waste our energy discussing what is already fully known 

 and described ? 



Well, my answer is this. The Partridge is a very common bird 

 — it is ubiquitous. Everyone, from the schoolboy upwards, is 

 familiar with the sight and sound of the bird, and in some small 

 degree with its habits ; but, notwithstanding this, there is a great 

 deal in the life of the Partridge which is not recorded anywhere, 

 and much that is recorded in our leading text-books that is 

 incorrect. 



One might say the same of any bird if one knew enough about 

 it. I don't suppose the Common Sparrow is in the least suiBciently 

 described. Anyone who specialised in the Sparrow could probably 

 record a lot of new facts about that bird — and correct a number 

 of errors. 



It is not possible that a writer of a text-book of ornithology 

 should be a naturalist specially qualified to deal with every bird 

 he has to write about, and, as a matter of fact, many of them, for 

 one reason or another, are cabinet naturalists rather than field 

 naturalists dealing with their own personal experience, and, as a 

 result, they trust to the statements of others, and these statements 

 get copied from book to book, long after they are known to be 

 incorrect. 



Now, it has been my lot, for a period of something over 20 

 years, to have been more or less in the position of an overhead, or 

 consulting keeper, on an estate of some size in Suffolk, and in my 

 unregenerate days I spent a large part of the summer on the ground, 

 and was out at most hours of the day and night during the 

 breeding and rearing season of the Partridge, studying their ways 



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