220 THE BIRDS OF ESSEX. 



at Saffron Walden in 1831.32-34-35, and mentions a nest containing thirteen eggs 

 built in 1848 on an oat-stack, sixteen feet from the ground. From these records 

 one may infer that the bird was then uncommon round Walden. Both Mr. Fitch 

 and myself have known several other instances of this bird nesting on the tops of 

 straw-stacks. About the middle of June, 1882, I put a bird — I believe of this 

 species — out of the crown of a large old pollard oak, standing in a hedgerow near 

 here. I could not find any nest (40. vii. 80). On June 23rd, 1877, I found a nest 

 in a lucerne field at Lindsell Hall, near Dunmow, containing eight eggs, all pure 

 white except for a few reddish spots and specks on one of them. Mr. J. H. Hills, 

 of Feering, has a specimen shot by himself, at Pattiswick, on Jan. 30, 1877, 

 which is said to have weighed twenty-five ounces. Round Orsett, Mr. Sackett 

 says it is as common as the English species. He adds that he has been informed 

 (but does not personally know it to be true) that in 1877 this species interbred 

 with the common species, on the East Tilbury Marshes. Mr. Stacey, of Dunmow, 

 has a couple shot near there, which also appear to have been crossed with the 

 Common Partridge, as traces of the markings of that bird may be seen upon the 

 feathers of their backs. I shot a similar young bird at Broomfield, in September, 

 1889. Other instances of these two species interbreeding are not unknown (27. 

 iii. 114). The Hon. C. H. Strutt records (29. Sept. 21), the appearance near Witham 

 in September, 1878, of a covey of nine, all of which were melanistic varieties ex- 

 cept one. Dr. Bree records two pied specimens, shot at Alresford by Mr. Haw- 

 kins (29. Dec. 5, 1863). 



Partridge : Perdix cifterea. 



An abundant resident, especially where well protected. It does 

 not appear, in Essex, to have in any way diminished since the intro- 

 duction of the Red-legged Partridge, as is often supposed. 



Daniel says (6. App. 397) " In 1808, at Mark's Hall in Essex, Payne the game- 

 keeper noticed a brace of Partridges, whose nest had been destroyed, taking to a 

 nest of Pheasants' eggs that the hen bird had been killed from by some accident, 

 and hatching and bring up ten young ones " (37, iii. 109). Both Yarrell (14. ii. 

 334), and Colonel Hawker, in his Instructions to Young Sportsmen (1825 ed.,p. 215), 

 allude to this nest. Daniel ,also (6. ii. 400) mentions a nest containing six- 

 teen eggs, found in 1788 on the top of an oak pollard at Lion Hall Farm, Essex, 

 belonging to Colonel Hawker. The bars of a stile crossing a public foot-path 

 were fastened to the tree and many persons passed the spot, but the eggs were 

 safely hatched and the young reached the ground by "scrambling down the short 

 and rough boughs which grew out all around from the trunk of the tree." It is 

 recorded (29. Oct. 15) that on Oct. 7th, 1887, a covey of nine started from West 

 Tilbury to fly across the Thames — at this point a mile or a mile-and-a-quarter 

 wide — and the whole of them fell into the water and were picked up by watermen. 

 The following extraordinary circumstance is recorded in the Essex County Chronicle 

 for June 3rd, 1887 : — 



" On Thursday, as two boys were engaged in mowing the lawn at the Grange 

 [Little Dunmow], a brace of Partridges suddenly started up. One bird flew 

 directly into the face of one of the boys, striking him with such force as to draw 

 blood and giving him a black eye, the bird itself falling dead at his feet. 



The Rev. C. G. Green says {Collections and Recollections of Nat. Hist, and 

 Sporty p. 211) : 



" For a family shot, I never heard of anything to come up to one that was made 

 by an old clergyman many years ago in the parish [Wimbish] in which stands 

 Mr. Gayton's house, Tiptofts. * * * He was such a very bad shot that he hardly 



