460 BRITISH BIRDS. 
ready almost at once to follow their parents in search of food; and in the 
autumn these broods often join into coveys for the winter. They are not 
favourites of the sportsman, and the most practicable way of shooting them 
is by driving. When followed by the guns the birds run quickly off, 
seldom rising until out of shot, and always preferring to escape from 
danger without using their wings. Instead of keeping together, the covey 
scatter in all directions, disturbing the Common Partridge, which would 
otherwise lie close for a short time, run with incredible speed towards the 
hedges, to fly over them, and again alight to run quicker than before. 
The general colour of the upper parts, including the wings, of the Red- 
legged Partridge is brown, shading into pale slate-grey on the crown and 
forehead ; a broad stripe over the eye, the chin, and the upper throat are 
nearly white; the lores are black, and the white on the throat is margined 
with black on the lower throat, the feathers of the upper breast being 
brown with black centres; the lower breast is pale slate-grey, and the 
belly and under tail-coverts are dull chestnut. Each feather on the flanks 
is pale slate-grey, broadly barred with white, black, and light and dark 
chestnut, the latter colour forming the terminal margin. The six outer- 
most tail-feathers on each side are bright chestnut, and the remainder are 
coloured like the back*. Bill, legs, toes, and a bare space round the eye 
scarlet ; claws brown; irides hazel. The female scarcely differs from the 
male in colour, except that she is slightly duller and is without the rudi- 
ments of a spur on the tarsus. Young in first plumage have the slate-grey 
replaced by buffish brown, and the black on the lower throat is not con- 
tinuous. Birds of the year are intermediate between these two plumages. 
Although the Barbary Partridge has been included as a British bird by 
many writers, and is even inserted without question in the ‘Ibis’ list t, 
it has not the slightest claim to be regarded as such. <A specimen of this 
bird was picked up dead near Melton Mowbray in April 1842 (Yarrell, Hist. 
Brit. B. 1. p. 400) ; several other examples have been obtained in Suffolk, 
- one in Yorkshire, and one in Cornwall. The range of this bird and the 
points in which it differs from the Red-legged Partridge have already been 
noticed above. The examples obtained in this country leave little room 
for doubt that they have escaped from confinement. 
* Ornithologists differ as to the number of the latter, the upper tail-coverts being 
difficult to distinguish from them. Naumann and Macgillivray consider four of these 
feathers to belong to the tail, making the total number sixteen ; and in my opinion they 
are correct, though Saunders states that this bird has only fourteen, 
+ The inconceivable slovenliness of this publication is pointedly shown in its geogra- 
phical distribution of these birds. The Red-legged Partridge being confined to Western 
Europe, is said to be “ found in Eastern and Southern Europe ;” and the Barbary Partridge 
being exclusively confined to the western portion of North Africa, the island of Sardinia, 
and the rock of Gibraltar, is said to “inhabit Southern Europe and Northern Africa,” 
