NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 57 



partridge, yet its chances of survival in a 

 wild state are decidedly less, for there are 

 many handicaps in nursery days to set off 

 against any superiority in strength of con- 

 stitution. The chick has from the first 

 only one parent to look after him, and even 

 then the hen pheasant cannot compare 

 with the partridge as sole guardian of a 

 brood, for while the smaller bird will 

 gather her charges together constantly and 

 anxiously check and count lest one be 

 missing, the larger hen has not the sense 

 to notice that anything is wrong so long 

 as she has a family at her feet, and will 

 wander on contentedly with two or three 

 chicks, quite oblivious of the facts that 

 little quartus has just fallen into a ditch, 

 quintus failed to get over the last fence, 

 while sextus and Septimus, lost in the long 

 wet grass some hours ago, are even now 

 taking their departure from an unkind 

 world. Such tragedies in the domestic 

 circle pass all unheeded by the fond but 

 foolish mother to whom out of sight is 

 indeed out of mind, the thriving happy 



