384 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 
found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were 
several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam 
into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, 
which, being most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with 
its wings about the head till it was drowned.—MARKWICK. 
HEN PARTRIDGE. 
A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 
with her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to get 
from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended 
me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter 
into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is 
instinct.— WHITE. 
It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded 
and run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog 
or man, to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. 
I have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable 
instance of the old bird’s solicitude to save its brood. As I was 
hunting a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small 
partridges: the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along 
» just before the dog’s nose till she had drawn him to a considerable 
distance, when she took wing, and flew still farther off, but not out of 
the field: on this the dog returned to me, near which place the 
young ones lay concealed in the grass, which the old bird no sooner 
perceived than she flew back again to us, settled just before the 
dog’s nose again, and by rolling and tumbling about, drew off his 
attention from her young, and thus preserved her brood a second 
time. I have also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a 
covey of young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, 
screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve their brood. 
—MARKWICK. 
A HYBRID. PHEASANT. 
Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Hold a curious 
bird for my inspection. It was found by the spaniels of one of his 
keepers in a coppice, and shot on the wing. The shape, air, and 
habit of the bird, and the scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well 
with the appearance of a cock pheasant; but then the head and 
