286 PARTRIDGES. 



fire, seeming to enjoy the warmth, as if it were its natural 

 bask on a sunny bank. The dogs of the house never molested 

 it; but unfortunately it one day fell under the paws of a 

 strange cat, and was killed. 



The Partridge, as is well known, nests both amongst the 

 the herbage on the fields, and also in the tangled undergrowth 

 of the hedgerows. Like other birds, it sometimes, however, 

 chooses a very different sort of nursery, as, for instance, a 

 hay-stack, on the top of which a nest was once formed, a 

 covey hatched, and safely carried off. 



In England we have but one species really indigenous ; but 

 in France and other parts of Europe they have beautiful 

 varieties the Red-legged and Barbary Partridges, which have 



Partridges. 



now been introduced into England, where they thrive and 

 breed ; and in America there are again other species, peculiar 

 to the New World. We shall give Captain Head's lively 

 description of two varieties, the Larch and Spruce Partridges, 

 which he met with in his expedition into the interior, near 

 Lake Huron. 



"Early in the spring," he says, "they make their appearance in 

 the pine woods, welcomed by the solitary back-settlers, not only as 

 harbingers of returning warmth, but as an agreeable addition to 

 their stock of provisions and a source of amusement. At first, when 

 the snow still covers the ground, they are easily tracked, though by 

 no means easily discovered in the trees, on which these two species 

 invariably perch. They run for a considerable distance from their 



