KED-LEGGED PARTKIDGE. 407 



and the destruction of the old birds, any how or at 

 any season, is regarded, at least by such individuals, as 

 anything but an unsportsman-like act. Much of this 

 antipathy originates in a very general belief that the 

 red-legs during the breeding season drive the English 

 birds from their nests, and appropriate them to their own 

 use ; but, although the French birds are undoubtedly 

 pugnacious, and both species have been observed fighting 

 and scuffling together in the spring of the year, I am 

 not aware that the charge of appropriation has been 

 fully proved. The red-legs commence laying earlier 

 than the grey partridge, and, as Mr. Newton informs 

 me, "are accustomed to drop their eggs in a desultory 

 way like guinea fowls;" yet, whilst the eggs of both 

 French and English birds (as occasionally, also, of 

 pheasants and partridges), are found in one nest, it is 

 seldom, I think, that the French bird is, in such cases, 

 the usurper.* On one occasion John Gaily, of North- 

 repps, gamekeeper to Mr. J. H. Gurney, saw a French 

 partridge stand and peck at the head of an English 

 bird when sitting, and at last drive her from the nest, 

 but even in this instance there is no evidence that the 

 red-leg afterwards took possession of it. In like manner 

 Mr. Edwards, of Keswick, was once witness to a strange 

 contest between a French partridge and a common hen, 

 apparently for the possession of a nest placed on the 

 side of a straw stack, f but, although the Frenchman 



* The French partridge is the earliest to lay (though, from her 

 irregular habits, she is the latest to hatch her brood), and grey 

 partridges or pheasants will very often "lay to her eggs," as the 

 keepers express it. 



f Mr. A. Newton has recorded in the "Zoologist" (p. 4073) the 

 discovery of a nest of the French partridge at Elveden, placed on 

 the thatch of a barley stack. The old bird was found sitting on 

 thirteen eggs, and would probably have hatched her young, had 

 it not been necessary to remove the stack before that time. In 



