164 CURIOUS INCUBATION. 



a considerable distance. They are said to cany one or 

 more eggs under eacli wing, and to run backwards and 

 forwards until the whole are safely deposited in the new 

 habitatioi^. As the same is recorded of the English 

 Partridge, we may presume that there is some truth in 

 the story. 



The task of incubating such Partridge eggs as are 

 casually met with, usually devolves on the little bantam, 

 or" the common hen; but, in Sweden, I once knew an 

 old tui"key-hen thus to officiate ; and when— a few days 

 after the birth of the chicks, ten to twelve in number — I 

 saw them following their gigantic foster-mother, they 

 looked healthy and well, and had every appearance of 

 long surviving. 



If we are to credit a statement made to me by Captain 

 P., of the Swedish army, for the truth of which he 

 vouched. Partridge eggs are, at times, hatched in a 

 way that may succeed well enough in the burning plains 

 of Africa, but which one hardly expects in the cold north. 

 My friend's stoiy was tliis : — A Partridge's nest was one 

 day found by the mowers in a field near to Amal, in the 

 province of Dalsland. The eggs, which had been sat on 

 for about half the visual time, were carried to that toAvn, 

 where, as a matter of curiosity rather than anything else, 

 they were placed in the frontispiece of the apothecary's 

 shop, which had a southern aspect. Some days after- 

 wards, however, to the astonishment of everybody, a 

 number of young Partridges, hatched solehj by the heat of 

 the sun, were seen parading to and fro amongst the many 

 party-coloured bottles decorating Esculapius's window. 



Partridge-shooting is a favourite amusement in Scan- 

 dinavia ; and in its more central and southern parts, 

 especially as regards Sweden, not a few of these birds are 

 killed to the pointer. 



Many of the northern sportsmen shoot exceedingly 



