RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. SifB 



near the coast between Yarmoutli and Lowestoft, told Mr. 

 Lubbock he knew two instances in which four or five Red- 

 Lcgged Partridges were found upon the beach there, in so 

 fatigued a state, that they were run down by the boatmen, 

 after endeavouring to conceal themselves in piles of seaweed, 

 and under the fishing-boats drawn up on the sand. The 

 authors of the Catalogue of Norfolk and Suffolk Birds, pub- 

 lished in the fifteenth volume of the Transactions of the 

 Linnean Society, say, " These birds are now very plentiful 

 in some parts of Suffolk. We have seen at least one hun- 

 dred and fifty brace upon Dunmingworth-hcath, and they 

 are found in greater or less numbers from Aldborough to 

 Woodbridge." They are now making their appearance in 

 Lincolnshire ; have been taken in Cambridgeshire ; and with- 

 in the last few years I have known three examples killed 

 very near Royston in Hertfordshire, one of which was shot 

 out of a covey. 



These birds scrape together a slight nest of dried grass and 

 leaves upon the ground, among growing corn, grass, or 

 clover ; and two or three instances are recorded, in which 

 nests with eggs were found in the thatch, or upon the top of 

 low stacks. The eggs are from fifteen to eighteen in num- 

 ber, of a reddish yellow white, spotted and speckled with 

 reddish brown; the length one inch seven lines and a half, 

 by one inch and three lines in breadth. The young, like 

 those of our Common Partridge, soon quit the nest after 

 they are released from the egg-shell. They feed also, like 

 other Partridges, on seeds, grain, and insects ; they frequent 

 turnip-fields, but appear to prefer heaths, commons, and 

 other waste land, interspersed with bushes. 



As an object of pursuit they are not much esteemed by 

 sportsmen. These birds being stronger on the wing than the 

 Common Partridge, are usually much more wild, and accord- 

 ingly much more difficult to get shots at within distance. 



