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THE RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. 



Caccabis rufa (Linnsus). 



This species — often called the French Partridge — belongs to a 

 well-defined group ; the members of which resemble each other in 

 their partiality for dry or mountainous districts, their main pattern 

 of coloration, the similarity of the sexes in plumage, and the presence 

 of blunt spurs on the legs of the males. The Red-legged Par- 

 tridge was successfully acclimatized in England about 1770, when 

 large numbers of eggs were hatched under domestic fowls on 

 two estates in Suffolk ; and as the result of this and subsequent 

 introductions it is now thoroughly established, not only in the 

 above county, but also in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, 

 Essex, some of the Midlands, and on dry ground along both sides 

 of the Thames valley. Owing to similar but independent centres 

 of dispersal, and a natural tendency on the part of the bird to seek 

 congenial situations, it is also found in many other districts ; but 

 under no circumstances has it thriven in the west, or on rich grass- 

 lands, and its stronghold is in East Anglia. There it has even 

 resisted attempts to exterminate it, made under the belief that it 

 harassed the Grey Partridge, while its habit of running used to 

 render dogs unsteady and precluded the possibility of walking it up ; 



