In the Neighbourhood of Salishuri/. 173 



similar place of safety, in an incredibly short space of time; and if 

 the young are hatched will entice the intruder away by the most 

 cunningly practised devices. Most people, I dare say, have seen 

 an instance of this, and how the parent bird will shuffle and tumble 

 about upon the ground, as though it had not a leg to stand' upon, 

 or rather a wing to fly with — a manceuvre, however, which is com- 

 mon to many other birds, and one which I myself have seen practised 

 most craftily by the Plover, Wild Duck, Land Rail, and also by the 

 little black-headed or Reed Bunting, and that quite as cleverly as 

 by the Partridge. Indeed the little Bunting almost effected its 

 purpose. I was at the time hunting for its nest in an osier bed (as 

 my boys wanted some eggs of this species for their collection) , when 

 out flew this little bird from the very osier stump over which I was 

 bending, and began to tumble about on the ground in such a comical 

 manner that I could not help following it for a yard or two, and had 

 much difiiculty to find the nest again, which was so deeply embedded 

 in the stump that I never should have found it at all had it not been 

 for the antics that the bird played. 



I had an interesting anecdote of the maternal instinct of the 

 Partridge related to me the other day. The Rev. R. S, Woodyates, 

 Vicar of Pembury, Tunbridge Wells, wrote to me thus : — " An in- 

 cident of instinct in Partridges, I saw the other day. A brood was 

 caught in the mowing grass, and placed in a coop under a Bantam 

 hen, some dutance from where they were found, and in a garden. 

 The old birds came fearlessly and took away each of the nine birds 

 in the brood, by laying down flat; the little one mounted the back, 

 and off flew the old bird. The young one must have dug its feet 

 into the plumage of the old one's back, and so got a hold." 



Though so bold when affection for their young demands it, these 

 birds would seem to be of a nervous temperament, and are at times 

 given over to a kind of panic, which seemingly destroys their powers 

 of self-preservation. A whole covey a little time ago settled in one 

 of the streets of the suburbs of Salisbury, and allowed themselves 

 to be caught one after another, being apparently paralysed by the 

 strangeness of their position ; and not long after I myself saw one 

 captured on the line, by the porters, in the middle of the Salisbury 



