3 88 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



snow on the ground, they being birds that come originally from a 

 hot climate. 



Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls 

 them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the 

 power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great 

 ease; an instance of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburn- 

 ham's menagerie, where the summer duck, anas sponsa, flew up, 

 and settled on the branch of an oak-tree in my presence : 

 but whether any of' them roost on trees in the night, we are not 

 informed by any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose 

 not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, 

 where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as 

 will appear from the following circumstance which happened in 

 this neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed- 

 A female fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond 

 in which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night 

 the fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked 

 by the gander, which being most powerful in its own element, 

 buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was drowned. 

 MARKWICK. 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A hen partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 

 with her wings and crying out as if wounded and unable to get 

 from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy who attended 

 me saw her brood, that was small and unable to fly, run for shelter 

 into an old fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is 

 instinct. WHITE. 



It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded 

 and run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either 

 dog or man, to, draw them away from its helpless unfledged young 

 ones. I have seen it often, and once in particular I saw a re- 

 markable instance of the old bird's solicitude to save its brood. 

 As I was hunting a young pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very 

 small partridges : the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling 



