354 THE NESTS AND EGGS OF BRITISH BIRDS. 



Family PIIASIANID^. Genus Caccabis. 



Sub-family PERDICIN.^. 



RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. 



Caccabis rufa [Limimis). 

 Single Brooded. Laying season, end of April and in May. 



British breeding area : The Red-legged Partridge 

 was introduced into England more than a century ago, 

 but owing to its partiality for dry sandy soils, it still 

 remains very local. It is fairly common wherever it is 

 preserv^ed, in the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, 

 Kent, and Sussex ; and evidence is not wanting that it 

 is endeavouring to establish itself in Lincolnshire, the 

 Midlands, and the higher grounds on the north side 

 of the Thames valley. The attempts to introduce this 

 species into Scotland and Ireland have hitherto proved 

 futile. 



Breeding habits : The Red-legged Partridge is a 

 resident in those areas it affects. Its breeding-haunts 

 not only embrace the cultivated fields, but rougher 

 ground, such as commons, the open treeless parts of 

 woodlands, low sedgy meadows, and strips of heathy 

 land clothed with clumps of gorse and rushes and 

 thickets of brambles and briars. The lird is not gre- 

 i^arious during the breeding season. The Red-legged 

 Partridge pairs annually, and during the mating season 

 the males become quarrelsome and pugnacious. The 

 nest is made amongst the thick herbage of a hedge- 

 bottom or a dry ditch, amongst growing grain, grass or 

 clover crops, not unfrequently in an exposed situation 

 by a public footpath, and occasionally amongst the 

 thatch of a stack, or even in the side. It is a mere 

 hollow scraped out by the female, and carelessly lined 

 with a few bits of dry herbage and leaves. The bird 



