04 NATURAL HISTORY OF SELBORNE. 
shot as soon as possible ; but the survivor readily found a mate, and 
the mischief went on. After some time the new pair were both 
destroyed, and the annoyance ceased.* 
Another instance I remember of a sportsman, whose zeal for the 
increase of his game being greater than his humanity, after pairing- 
time he always shot the cock bird of every couple of partridges upon 
his grounds; supposing that the rivalry of many males interrupted 
the breed: he used to say, that, though he had widowed the same 
hen several times, yet he found she was still provided with a fresh 
paramour, that did not take her away from her usual haunt. 
Again ; I knew a lover of setting, an old sportsman, who has 
often told me that soon after harvest he has frequently taken small 
coveys of partridges, consisting of cock birds alone ; these he 
pleasantly used to call old bachelors. 
TROUT. 
There is a propensity belonging to common house-cats that is 
very remarkable ; I mean their violent fondness for fish, which 
appears to be their most favourite food: and yet nature in this 
instance seems to have planted in them an appetite that, unassisted, 
they know not how to gratify: for of all quadrupeds cats are the 
* This takes place generally, and in the case of carrion crows we have known it occur 
more than once in the same spring. Birds of prey immediately find another mate when 
any accident happens to one of the pair. The grey-backed or hooded crow, corvus 
cornix, Linn., is a migratory species in many parts, and when any accidental circumstances 
cause one or two birds to remain, they mate in spring with the carrion crow. This in- 
stinctive desire for procreation is not however confined to birds ; when the male salmon 
has seg killed from his mate on the spawning-bed, his place is immediately supplied by 
another. 
