420 BIRDS OF NORFOLK. 



Gurdon's, at Letton, in 1845, which was believed to 

 be bred between a red-legged partridge and a pheasant. 

 Varieties are also occasionally met with, though by no 

 no means common. A male shot at Saxlingham, in 

 September, 1863, had part of the breast white. The 

 rest of the plumage as usual; and Mr. Newcome, of 

 Feltwell, has one nearly white killed in that neigh- 

 bourhood in 1865. 



PERDIX CINEREA, Latham. 

 COMMON PAETEIDGE. 



If Norfolk owes its celebrity as an agricultural county 

 rather to an improved system of farming operations 

 than to the kindliness of its soil, it is unquestionably 

 indebted for unrivalled partridge shooting to its native 

 "sands and gravels" even more than to the extended 

 cultivation of land. As before stated, Sir Thomas 

 Browne, writing on the "Birds of Norfolk," remarks, 

 " There be here great store of partridges," and 

 such, no doubt, had been the case from time 

 immemorial; for, though the range of this species is 

 co-extensive with the inroads of the plough, it is 

 doubtful if the race is even now so abundant as when 

 the " staple products of the county were rye and 

 rabbits."* Though generally dispersed on both heavy 

 and light lands, it is on the "blowing sands" of the 



* Mr. C. S. Eead, M.P., in a recent paper on "Norfolk Agricul- 

 ture," in " White's Gazetteer" (3rd ed.), speaking of the triumphs 

 effected by modern farming operations, says, " Less than a hundred 

 years ago Norfolk did not produce enough wheat to maintain its 

 scanty population. It appears that its staple products were rye 

 and rabbits ; the cultivation of wheat being entirely confined to 

 fertile lands to the east of the county, and the heavy soils to the 

 Bouth and interior of the county." 



