PARTRIDGES. 315 



a body drawn out to such an unnatural length, that 

 twenty times must I have overlooked it, mistaking it for 

 a dead branch, which it most closely resembled. It was 

 about twenty feet from the ground, on a bough, and sat 

 eight or ten feet from the body of the tree. I shot it, 

 and in the course of the morning killed four more, which 

 I came upon much in the same way as I did upon the 

 first. At one of these my gun flashed three times, with- 

 out its attempting to move; after which I drew the 

 charge, loaded again, and killed it. The dog all the 

 time was barking and baying with the greatest perse- 

 verance. There is, in fact, no limit to the stupidity of 

 these creatures ; and it is by no means unusual, on find- 

 ing a whole covey on a tree in the Autumn, to begin 

 by shooting the bird which happens to sit lowest, and 

 then to drop the one above him, and so on till all are 

 killed*." 



Very different, indeed, from our straggling covies, are 

 the assemblages of these birds in America. Near Fort 

 Churchill, on the shores of Hudson's Bay, in the Winter 

 season, they may be seen by thousands feeding on the 

 willow-tops peeping above the surface of the snow. The 

 crew of a vessel, wintering there, killed one thousand 

 eight hundred dozen in the course of the season. They 

 are provided with a plumage well calculated for the se- 

 vere weather to which they are exposed, each feather 

 being in a manner doubled, so as to give additional 

 warmth. Our British Partridges huddle together in the 

 stubbles, but these birds shelter and roost by burrowing 

 under the snow : in the snow, too, they practise a com- 

 mon mode of escaping observation and pursuit, as they 

 will dive under it as a Duck does in water, and rise at a 

 considerable distance. The Indians, as well as European 

 settlers, catch them in great abundance, in traps, and live 

 upon them throughout their long Winter. 



From the earliest ages, Partridges seem, indeed, to 

 have been a favourite food, and the pursuit of them as 



* CAPTAIN HEAD'S Forest Scenery. 



