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PARTRIDGE. 



COMMON PARTRIDGE . 



PLATE CXLII. PIG. I. 



Perdix cinerea, LATHAM. JENTNS. 



Tetrao perdix, LINNJEUS. 



THESE birds begin to pair very early, even so soon as the 1st. of 

 February, and usually between that date and the 14th.: they are then 

 found in ploughed and clover fields. At these times there are often 

 fierce combats between the male birds. Some few never pair at all, 

 perhaps for want of mates. The young of more than one nest some- 

 times join together in coveys. It is said that they remain as long 

 as three weeks in the neighbourhood where they think of making 

 their nest, apprehensive of choosing a dangerous site, and if the 

 one first selected appears to be such, they fix themselves somewhere 

 else. 



The nest is only a few straws placed in a mere hollow scratched 

 in the earth, under the shelter perhaps of some tuft, generally in 

 open grass and other fields, among peas, corn, weeds, or herbage, 

 at the foot of a tree or bush, or by a post, but at times in a small 

 plantation, among shrubs, under a hedgerow, even by the road- 

 side, and on the moors in the vicinity of cultivated land; sometimes 

 in holes of decayed trees, as much as three or four feet from the 

 ground, and even on the top of hay-stacks: I have been told of a 

 nest placed in this situation, the brood hatched, and safely reared. 

 Another I have heard of under the post of a hand-gate, which was 

 turned whenever passengers went backwards and forwards through it. 

 A brace of Partridges have been known, their own nest having been 

 destroyed, to take up with the nest and eggs of a pair of Pheasants, 



VOL. II. S 



