288 PARTRIDGES. 



ing there, killed one thousand eight hundred dozen in the 

 course of the season. They are provided with a plumage well 

 calculated for the severe 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 common 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 abund- 

 ance 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 favourite an 

 amusement. In the Scriptures, " to hunt the Partridge on the 

 mountains," is alluded to as a well-known sport ; and to this 

 day, though not exactly with the same weapon, it is practised 

 by the Arabs of Mount Lebanon. They make a slight square 

 frame of wood, of about five feet in height, over which they 

 stretch an ox-hide, perforated in three or four places. The 

 ox-hide is moved quietly, in an upright position, along the 

 ground, and the Arab, concealing himself behind it, is hidden 

 from the view of the game, which unsuspectingly allow the 

 sportsman to come within shot of them. The Arab, seeing 

 through one of the apertures, quietly protrudes the muzzle of 

 his long musket through another hole, and firing upon the 

 birds, as they feed in coveys upon the ground, kills a great 

 many of them.* 



Our limits will not allow us to dwell much longer on this 

 family of birds, which includes Quails ; but we cannot leave 

 them without showing how strongly modern travellers cor- 

 roborate the account given in the Scriptures of the prodigious 

 numbers of Quails, and the mode of drying them for food. 

 " And there went forth a wind from the Lord, and brought 

 Quails from the sea, and let them fall by the camp, as it were 

 a day's journey on this side, and as it were a day's journey on 

 the other side, round about the camp, and as it were two 

 cubits high upon the face of the earth. And the people stood 



* FRANKLIN'S Constantinople , vol. ii. 



