RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. 419 



I never remember to have seen more than one 

 partridge that exhibited the slightest indication of a 

 cross between the French and English, and in this case, 

 unfortunately, the bird had been kept too long for 

 preservation. This specimen was killed at Holverstone, 

 in October, 1850, by a relative of mine, an old sports- 

 man, who quite concurred in my opinion, and I find 

 the following entry respecting it in my note book at 

 the time : " Feathers on the flanks and wing coverts, 

 the legs and part of the head decidedly French, the 

 breast, back, tail, and upper part of the head English." 

 M. Temminck refers to one instance of a hybrid between 

 these two species, and it is perhaps somewhat singular 

 that such should not occur more frequently.* Mr. 

 Lubbock has recorded a singular hybrid killed at Mr. 



* In the "Ibis" for 1864 (p. 225) will be found a letter 

 from M. Leon Olph-Galliard with reference to a peculiar race of 

 partridges, not improbably of hybrid origin, termed Starna 

 palustris by Demeezemaker, a celebrated ornithologist, who has 

 examined, during the last fifteen years, some thirty examples, old 

 as well as young, killed in the neighbourhood of Bergues and 

 Dunkirk on the northern frontiers of France and Belgium. Two 

 other specimens have been also obtained in the market at Lyons 

 by M. Galliard, who thus describes the immature plumage: 

 "Meme disposition de couleurs que dans la Starna cinerea (grey 

 partridge). Les taches longitudinales du bas du corps sont mieux 

 marquees et plus apparantes, attendu qu'elles sont d'un blanc assez 

 pur, et rehaussees de chaque cote par une teinte noire assez foncee. 

 Les teintes generates sont un gris-cendre, un peu bleuatre. Gorge 

 d'un blanc-terne. Eectrices au nombre de 16, et tirant au cafe au 

 lait sombre." The old birds which are described as exactly 

 resembling one another, as do also the young " ont le jaune de la 

 tete et de la gorge comme la Perdrix ordinaire, ainsi que le fer 

 a cheval de la poitrine; mais les couleurs en sont tres-pales." 

 They are known to the sportsmen of the country as the marsh 

 partridge (Perdrix de marais), but though found singly and in 

 small coveys, " il semblait qu'elles ne recherchaient pas les Perdrix 

 ordinaires, ou qu'elles en dtaient rebutes." 

 3n2 



