T H E P A R T R I D G E. 67 



ornithologists who have graced this country by their presence and 

 enriched our libraries with their splendid works, that it would seem 

 superfluous, if not really hopeless, in us to attempt to add any 

 thing further upon a subject thus dwelt upon by others far more 

 competent to the task. However, as we propose bringing to the 

 notice of our readers the practical experience of shooters in 

 general, in connection with the more scientific observations and 

 researches of ornithologists, regarding all those birds of our 

 country which properly belong to the sportsman's catalogue, we 

 must be pardoned, ex necessitate rerum, for going over much 

 ground already touched upon by other writers in the many excel- 

 lent works already published on this branch of Natural History. 



" The partridge is nine inches long, and fourteen inches in 

 extent ; the bill is black ; line over the eye, down the neck, and 

 whole chin pure white, bounded by a band of black, which de- 

 scends and spreads broadly over the throat ; the eye is dark hazel ; 

 down neck and upper part of the breast, red-brown ; sides of the 

 neck spotted with white and black, on a reddish-brown ground; 

 back scapulars and lesser coverts, red-brown intermixed with ash 

 and sprinkled with black; tertials edged with yellowish-white, 

 beautifully marked with numerous curving spots or arrowheads of 

 black; tail, ash sprinkled with reddish-brown; legs, very pale ash.' 



The above accurate description, (as well as the major part of 

 the other scientific descriptions of birds in this work,) taken from 

 Wilson, being so perfect in itself, there remains nothing to add, 

 except that the female bird is distinguished from the male by its 

 diminished weight and size, and also by its plumage being some- 

 what yellowish-brown about the chin and sides of the head. 



HABITS. 



Partridges, in sections of the country where they are much 

 troubled by sportsmen, become extremely shy and wild, seldom 

 venturing far into the open fields, but confining themselves to the 

 edges of close cover, to which they take at the slightest alarm, 

 secreting themselves in the thickets, and not unfrequently perch- 



