The Common Partridge 

 (Perclix Cinerea). 



AVERAGE length of male specimen from thirteen 

 inches, female less. This might justly be termed 

 an universal bird, for it is found generally 

 throughout Europe. In Egypt and the North African 

 coast it might well be regarded as migratory. 



With the solitary exception of the northern moors, it 

 is everywhere abundant throughout the British Isles. It 

 is perfectly true that wherever man brings into cultivation 

 the wastes, there the partridge delights to roam, and 

 there he assists in husbanding, though in a different sense, 

 the grain which civilisation supplies. The more richly 

 cultivated land harbours the greater number of these birds. 

 They choose their mates usually very early in spring the 

 first mild days of February being not too early and they 

 haunt the vicinity of their future nesting-places. Their 

 plans, however, for incubation often take a procrastinating 

 form, for it is not unusual to find only half grown birds 

 in the month of September. 



They lay variously ; sometimes one discovers a nest of a 

 dozen eggs, and even twenty may be seen in a scooped-out 

 hollow, or, preferably, a furrow of tilled ground, and this 

 mode of nidification prevails almost interruptedly through 

 the whole genus. 



Concealment is not in the nature of the plump little 

 bird, neither is there any great pretention to a nest, 

 properly so called. Neither is the selection of the site 

 always on terra firma, for instances are recorded of trees 

 being appropriated for this purpose. "Far from the 



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