142 PARTRIDGE. 



PARTRIDGE. 



COMMON PARTRIDGE. 

 PLATE CXLII. FIGURE I. 



Perdix cinerea, LATHAM. JENYNS. 



Tetrao perdix, LINNAEUS. 



r 1 1HESE birds begin to pair very early, even so soon 

 -*- as the i st. of February, and usually between that 

 date and the i4th.: 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 sometimes 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 roadside, and on the moors in the vicinity of cul- 



