PARTRIDGE. 34l 



of arable land is offered to them, tliey are much inferior in 

 size, although perhaps by no means evincing a similar infe- 

 riority in point of flavour. 



It has been observed to me also, that on some heathy dis- 

 tricts in Surrey, as the Hurtwood and Bagshot Heath, the 

 Partridges seldom frequent the corn-lands, but subsist on 

 heath and hurtle-berries. These birds are not so white in 

 the flesh when dressed as others, and have some of the flavour 

 of the Grouse. 



The Partridge is so generally distributed over this coun- 

 try as to make an enumeration of particular localities un- 

 necessary ; but though plentiful in some of the low grounds 

 of Scotland, Mr. Macgillivray says there are none on the 

 islands of the outer or western Hebrides. M. Nilsson in- 

 cludes this bird in his Fauna of Scandinavia, and it is found 

 in suitable localities over the European continent to the 

 shores of the Mediterranean. M. Temminck says it inha- 

 bits Barbary and Egypt ; and two Russian naturalists have 

 included it in their catalogues of the birds found in the coun- 

 try between the Black and the Caspian Seas, south of the 

 Caucasian mountain range. Though stationary all the year 

 in central Europe, this bird is said to be migratory in the 

 countries that are at the limits of its geographical range. 



The adult male has the beak bluish white ; the irides 

 hazel ; behind the eye, and above the ear-coverts, a small 

 triangular patch of naked red skin ; the forehead, the space 

 between the beak and the eye, with the feathers extending 

 backwards as far as the ear-coverts, and downwards covering 

 the front of the neck and throat, bright yellowish chestnut ; 

 top of the head and back of the neck greyish brown ; the 

 back and wing-coverts freckled with two shades of chestnut 

 brown on a ground of wood-brown, the shaft of each feather 

 forming a conspicuous streak of pale wood-brown ; the wing- 

 primaries, or flight-feathers, greyish brown, with transverse 



