VIRGINIAN PARTRIDGE 133 



displays extreme anxiety, boldly attacking an intruder, or 

 using every artifice and stratagem to draw him away, feigning 

 lameness, " throwing herself in the path, fluttering along, and 

 beating the ground with her wings, as if sorely wounded, 

 uttering at the same time certain peculiar notes of alarm 

 well understood by the young, which dive separately among 

 the grass, and secrete themselves till the danger is over; 

 and the parent having decoyed the pursuer to a safe distance, 

 returns, by a circuitous route, to collect and lead them off." 

 She shows the greatest assiduity and the most sedulous and 

 unremitting attention to their further care. Wilson mentions 

 a curious anecdote of some young ones which had been 

 hatched under a hen, and which, "when abandoned by her, 

 associated with the cows, which they regularly followed to 

 the fields, returned with them when they came home in the 

 evening, stood by them while they were milked, and again 

 accompanied them to the pasture. These remained during 

 the winter, lodging in the stable, but as soon as spring came 

 they disappeared." 



