Northern Observations of Inland Birds 163 



began diligently to pull the bridge to bits, and eventually 

 he unearthed — the Frenchman ! The laugh was then on 

 the side of the dog's owner, and I give the anecdote as 

 illustrating one essential difference between the character 

 of the French partridge and that of the brown. A wounded 

 French partridge will run like a hare, and eventually 

 hide itself so securely that it may be impossible to recover 

 it. 



The chief recommendation of the French partridge is 

 its very beautiful colouring. It is not so much a bird of 

 the homesteads and the fallow fields as is its congener, 

 but loves high, dry country, where crops are few and 

 where such cover as dense gorse is abundant. In dis- 

 position it is a wild bird, preferring wilder surroundings 

 than those among which the brown partridge is found at 

 its best. 



While the capercaillie is the largest, the quail is the 

 smallest of gallinaceous birds, and it has repeatedly been 

 stated that the quail is the only one of our game birds 

 which finds a place in the Bible. This, however, is 

 incorrect, as the partridge is mentioned in the first Book 

 of Samuel, chap. 26, verse 20, and in Jeremiah, chap. 

 17, verse 11. I have never shot quail, but from what I 

 have heard from those who have, the birds afford very 

 indifferent sport, being given to running and to short 

 flights. Indeed, like most northerners, I have never 

 seen a live wild quail, though when touring in Wales I 

 have heard the birds calling, day and night, shortly after 

 their arrival at these shores. 



The quail is, of course, a migrant, and it strikes one 

 unacquainted with it as very strange that a bird which 

 belongs so essentially to the earth should take upon 

 itself such gigantic trans-continental journeys as to be 

 distributed equally over Europe, Asia, and Africa, a 

 process which has entailed the crossing of great waters 



L 2 



