144 LLOW)S NATURAL HISTORY. 



coverts afid scapulars blotched on the inner web with chestnut, 

 and with only buff shaft-stripes (fig. i). Top of the head 

 brown, rest of the head, throat, and neck chestnut; breast 

 grey, finely mottled with black, below which is a large horse- 

 shoe-shaped chestnut patch; rest of under-parts whitish; first 

 flight-feather with extremity rounded ; feet horn-grey. Total 

 length, i2'6 inches ; wing, 6*2 ; tail, 3*5 ; tarsus, 17. 



Adult Female. — Easily distinguished from the male by having 

 the ground-colour of the lesser and median wing-coverts and 

 scapulars mostly blacky with wide-set buff cross-bars, in addition 

 to the longitudinal buff shaft-stripe down the middle of each 

 feather (figs. 2 and 3) ; and the chestnut patch on the breast 

 small, or sometimes absent. 



Immature examples of both sexes exhibit the characteristics of 

 the adults, but may be recognised by having the first primary 

 flight-feather /^/;z/^^ at the extremity instead of being rounded, 

 and the ittX. yelloivish horn-colour. 



The immature fejnale has generally a well-developed chestnut 

 horse-shoe mark on the breast. 



Eange. — Europe and Western and Central Asia, extending 

 in the west to Scandinavia and the British Isles, in the east 

 to the Barabinska Steppes and Altai Mountains, and in the 

 south to Northern Spain and Portugal, Naples, the Caucasus, 

 Asia Minor, and North Persia. 



As considerable interest attaches to the sexual differences in 

 plumage in the Common Partridge, it may be worth while to 

 republish here the substance of my articles on this subject 

 which appeared in the '* Field " quoted above. 



In every text-book on ornithology which gives a description 

 of the plumage in the male and female of the Common 

 Partridge we find that the chief difference mentioned as dis- 

 tinguishing the two sexes is, that the 7?iale has a large chestnut 

 horse-shoe-shaped mark on the lower breast, while in the 

 female this marking is reduced to a few chestnut spots, or some- 

 times entirely absent. This character, as we first pointed out 



