COMMON PARTRIDGE. 189 
COMMON PARTRIDGE. 
PERDIX CINEREA, Latham. 
Owing to the protection afforded to it, the Partridge is 
abundant throughout the lowlands of Cheshire, and occurs 
in some numbers in the Hill Country. In the neighbour- 
hood of Wincle, and possibly in other districts, it is not so 
plentiful as it was when, owing to the high price obtain- 
able for British wheat, more of the land was under corn. 
Latham describes a chestnut variety of this species 
as the ‘Cheshire Partridge’ in the following words :— 
‘This bird is somewhat larger than our Common 
Partridge. The bill black, head and neck, to the 
breast, brownish buff-colour; the ear feathers and wing 
coverts tawny brown, each feather whitish down the: 
shaft, and continued as a large mottled white mark, 
occupying the whole end of the feather; under parts 
of the body from the breast, chestnut brown; quills 
mixture of white on the upper part of the body and 
wing coverts, and some few mottlings of buff on the 
breast, beyond this chestnut brown, as in the other, 
with a little mixture of white; the thighs in both pale 
ash colour. The above two, most elegant birds, were 
shot in Cheshire, and were in Mr. Bullock’s Museum. 
Whether they belong to the Common Partridge, as a 
variety, we are unable to determine: as far as the head 
and neck, they coincide greatly with the mountain 
species, but not in any other circumstances, as the 
latter bird is uniform in its colours, having no mark- 
ings of white on any part of the body.’? 
1 General History of Birds, vol. viii. p. 286. Cf. W. R. Ogilvie- 
Grant, Field, vol. lxxix. p. 508. 1892. 
