COMMON AND RED-LEGGED PAETRIDGES. 129 



disappearance of the long wheat stubbles the difficulty o£ 

 killing" Partridges (in a country where 'driving'^ is imprac- 

 ticable) was greatly increased, and sportsmen generally have 

 noticed that the birds have become much wilder and more 

 difficult of approach of late years, flying also, when put up, to 

 a greater distance before alighting. A considerable change 

 in this respect has certainly taken place even within the last 

 ten or fifteen years, turnip fields often failing now to give the 

 close shots which were once assured, and, save in exceptional 

 cases, it is in standing corn alone that the birds will lie well. 



The variety of the Partridge in which the chestnut of the 

 ' horse-shoe ' mark on the breast is replaced by white, which 

 is not very uncommon in some parts of England, has only 

 once come under my notice in Oxfordshire, namely, in Sep- 

 tember, 1888, when I saw one shot at Barford, but Mr. J. 

 Hyde tells me he has killed one or two at Bloxham. In 

 1885^ I ^lio^ ^ remarkably fine example within a quarter of 

 a mile of the county boundary, in Northamptonshire, and 

 had noticed for two or three years previously that the birds 

 on a farm at Adderbury, not far from where the above bird 

 was killed, had a good deal of white mixed with the ordinary 

 chestnut. The proportion of white appeared to be on the 

 increase each year, and some birds killed in that autumn 

 showed nearly an even amount of chestnut and white. I 

 have since seen other similar examples shot near Bloxham, the 

 variety being evidently on tbe increase. 



Abnormal varieties of the Partridge are uncommon, but a 

 pied specimen which was shot at Standlake some years ago is 

 still preserved there, and another nearly white bird was seen 

 at the same place in September, 1883 (W. H. Warner, M8.). 



THE RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. 



Cctcxabis rufa. 

 The Bed-legged, or French, Partridge is stated by Daniel ; 

 in his Bural Sjjorts, to have been tui-ned down at Windsor in 



K 



