PHASIANID/E. 



489 







■^•cij 



THE RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. 



Caccabis rufa (Linnceus). 



This species — often called the French Partridge^ — belongs to a 

 well-defined group, the members of which resemble each other in 

 their partiality for dry or mountainous districts, their main pattern 

 of coloration, the similarity of the sexes in plumage, and the presence 

 of blunt spurs on the legs of the males. The Red-legged Par- 

 tridge was successfully acclimatized in England about 1770, when 

 large numbers of eggs were hatched under domestic fowls en 

 two estates in Suffolk ; and as the result of this and subsequent 

 introductions it is now thoroughly established, not only in the 

 above county, but also in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, 

 Essex, some of the Midlands, and on dry ground along the northern 

 side of the Thames valley. Owing to similar but indei)endent 

 centres of dispersal, and a natural tendency on the part of the bird 

 to seek congenial situations, it is also found in many other districts : 

 but under no circumstances has it thriven in the west, or on rich 

 grass-lands ; and its stronghold is in East Anglia, where it frequents 

 the higher and less cultivated soils. It has even resisted attempts 

 to exterminate it, made under the belief that it harassed the Grey 

 Partridge, and because its habit of running rendered dogs un- 



