OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 383 
owner’s house for security, let the weather be ever so cold or blow- 
ing. Partridges, it is true, roost on the ground, not having the 
faculty of perching ; but then the same fear prevails in their minds ; 
for through apprehension from pole-cats and stoats, they never 
trust themselves to coverts, but nestle together in the midst of large 
fields, far removed from hedges and coppices, which they love to 
haunt in the day, and where at that season they can skulk more 
secure from the ravages of rapacious birds. 
As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay web-feet forbid them 
to settle on trees: they therefore, in the hours of darkness and 
danger, betake themselves to their own element the water, where 
amidst large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, they float 
the whole night long in peace and security.—WHITE. 
Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, 
even in the daytime, to the very tops of the highest trees. Last 
winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered all 
my guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest 
boughs of some very tall elms, chattering and making a great 
clamour : I ordered them to be driven down lest they should be 
frozen to death in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected 
without much difficulty ; they being very unwilling to quit their 
lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so much . 
frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how to account 
for this, unless it was occasioned by their aversion to the snow on 
the ground, they being birds that come originally from a hot 
climate. 
Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls 
them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the 
power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease ; 
an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham’s 
menagerie, where the summer duck, azas sponsa, flew up, and 
settled on the branch of an oak-tree in my presence : but whether 
any of them roost on trees in the night, we are not informed by 
any author that I am acquainted with.* I suppose not, but that, 
like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds 
of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear from 
the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood 
a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was 
* Several ducks are of arboreal habits, perch and roost upon trees and make their nest 
in hollows cr in appropriate situations among the large branches. ‘The common wild-duck 
has been known to breed in a pollard willow. 
