338 TETRAONID-E. 



wards ; — a disposition wliicli instinct has suggested as the 

 best for observing the approach of any of their numerous 

 enemies, whatever may be the direction, and thus increase 

 their security by enabling them to avoid a surprise. In 

 the morning early they again visit the stubble for a break- 

 fast, and pass the rest of the day as before. Fields of clover 

 or turnips are very favourite places of resort during the day. 



Many Partridges are annually reared from eggs that are 

 found, or mowed out in cutting clover or grass, these eggs 

 being hatched under hens. The young birds should be fed 

 with ants-eggs, curd, grits ; small grain, when the birds are 

 old enough, and some vegetables. Partridges thus hatched 

 and reared become so tame as even to be troublesome, run- 

 ning close about the feet of those who are in the habit of 

 supplying them several times daily with food ; and though 

 they live for years afterwards in an aviary, there is no record, 

 as far as I am aware, that the Partridge has ever bred in 

 confinement. Dry summers are particularly favourable to 

 the breeding of Partridges ; White, in his History of Sel- 

 borne, notes, that after the dry summers of 1740 and 1741, 

 the Partridges swarmed to such a degree, that unreasonable 

 sportsmen killed twenty, and sometimes thirty brace in a 

 day. This, however, is but moderate sport to some that 

 might be quoted. T. W. Coke, Esq. (now Earl of Leices- 

 ter) on the 7th of October, 1797, upon his manor at War- 

 ham, and within a mile's circumference, bagged forty brace 

 of Partridges in eight hours, at ninety-three shots, every bird 

 was killed singly ; the day before, on the same ground, he 

 killed twenty-two brace and a half in three hours. 



A more recent match, as recorded in Pierce Egan"'s Anec- 

 dotes, and in the Naturalist's Library, affords still further 

 proof of the abundance of the Partridge, and the excess to 

 which the sport may be carried. This was a bet between 

 Mr. William Coke and Lord Kennedy, for two hundred 



