024 THE COMMON PARTRIDGE 
there were no broods of Partridges, I was much struck by the fact 
that stubble-fields abounded, to an unusual degree, with ant-hills. 
In ordinary seasons, these are found torn to pieces and levelled. 
This year, scarcely one was touched ; and even at the present time, 
the end of October, winged ants are far more numerous than they 
usually are at this time of the year. Besides insects, Partridges 
feed on the seeds of weeds, green leaves, grain spilt in reaping, and 
on corn which has been sown. This last charge is a serious one ; 
yet, on the whole, it is most probable that Partridges do far more 
good than harm on an estate, the insects and weeds which they 
destroy more than making amends for their consumption of seed- 
corn. 
I might fill many pages with anecdotes of the devotion of Part- 
ridges to their maternal duties—their assiduity in hatching their 
eggs, their disregard of personal danger while thus employed, their 
loving trickeries to divert the attention of enemies from their broods 
to themselves, and even the actual removal of their eggs from a 
suspectedly dangerous position to a place of safety ; but with many 
of these stories the reader must be already familiar if he has read 
any of the works devoted to such subjects. 
The number of eggs laid before incubation commences varies from 
ten to fifteen, or more. Yarrell says, ‘ Twenty-eight eggs in one 
instance, and thirty-three eggs in two other instances, are recorded 
as having been found in one nest ; but there is little doubt, in these 
cases, that more than one bird had laid eggs in the same nest.’ 
This may be; but I find in a French author an instance in which 
no less than forty-two eggs were laid by a Partridge in captivity, all 
of which, being placed under a hen, would have produced chicks, 
but for the occurrence of a thunder-storm accompanied by a deluge 
of rain which flooded the nest, when the eggs, which all contained 
chicks, were on the point of being hatched. The average number 
of birds in a covey is, I believe, about twelve; quite enough to 
supply the sportsmen and to account for the abundance of the bird. 
The character of the Partridge’s flight is familiar to most people. 
Simultaneously with the startled cry of alarm from the cock comes 
a loud whirr-r-r as of a spinning-wheel : away fly the whole party in 
a body, keeping a horizontal, nearly straight line: in turns each 
bird ceases to beat its wings and sails on for a few yards with 
extended pinions ; the impetus exhausted which carried it through 
this movement, it plies its wings again, and if it have so long escaped 
the fowler, may, by this time, consider itself out of danger, for its 
flight, though laboured, is tolerably rapid. 
The call of the Partridge is mostly uttered in the evening, as soon 
as the beetles begin to buzz. The birds are now proceeding to 
roost, which they always do in the open field, the covey forming a 
circle with their heads outwards, to be on the watch against their 
enemies, of whom they have many. They feed for the most part 
