110 PHASIANID^. 



Wilson, Bart., had a small covey of seven or eight hatched 

 and reared hy the parent hirds in his aviary at Charlton 

 in the summer of 1842. Dry summers are particularly 

 favourable to the breeding of Partridges ; White, in his 

 ' History of Selborne,' notes, that after the dry summers 

 of 1740 and 1741, Partridges swarmed to such a degree, 

 that " unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and sometimes 

 thirty brace in a day." The late Earl of Leicester, on the 

 7th of October, 1797, upon his manor at Warham, and 

 within a mile's circumference, bagged forty brace of Par- 

 tridges in eight hours, at ninety-three shots : every bird being 

 killed singly ; and the day before, on the same ground, he 

 killed twenty-two brace and a half in three hours. This 

 was wonderfully good shooting in the days of flint-locks, but 

 as a bag it has long since been thrown into the shade. The 

 largest bag of Partridges on record was made by the Maharajah 

 Duleep Singh to his own gun in 1876, the number of 780 

 hand-reared birds being shot on one day, and 314 wild birds 

 on another ; the total of six days' shooting near Thetford 

 being 2,530 Partridges, without counting ground-game. 



When " driving " is practised, telegraph wires often prove 

 fatal to Partridges, and they frequently fly against these 

 unseen obstacles on foggy mornings. 



Mr. Selby observes that the Partridge is found to vary 

 considerably in size, according to situation, and the diff'erent 

 nutritive qualities of food ; thus, the largest are met with in 

 districts where an abundance of grain prevails, whilst upon 

 the precincts of moors, where arable land is scarce, they are 

 much smaller in size, although by no means inferior in point 

 of flavour. It has been observed to me also, that on some 

 heathy districts in Surrey, such as the Hurtwood and 

 Bagshot Heath, Partridges seldom frequent the corn-lands, 

 but subsist on heath and hurtle-berries. These birds are 

 not so white in the flesh when dressed, and have some of 

 the flavour of the Grouse. A Partridge weighing lib. is 

 above the average, but examples have been known up to 

 18 ozs. 



The Partridge is so generally distributed over this country 



