60 THE PHEASANT SUBFAMILY 



being of this bird can be found than that furnished by Mr. J. G. 

 Millais, 1 who remarks that, in West Sussex "twenty-five years ago 

 gunners used to kill seventy and eighty brace a day ; now a bag of forty 

 brace in the season is about the limit. Within the last ten years all 

 the nice wild spots of furze common have been reclaimed ; all the old- 

 fashioned double hedgerows have fallen before the billhook; and 

 the few partridges that are left nest by the roadsides, where pre- 

 datory dogs and boys give them no peace, or in the clover-fields, where 

 the cutting-machine destroys the nests in June. Two years ago I 

 found ten nests in one clover-field thus destroyed." When such 

 adverse conditions prevail, it is useless, as Mr. Millais remarks, to 

 import Hungarian partridges, or to resort to artificial rearing. 



To the well-being of the redlegged-partridge access to waste- 

 ground is even more essential ; but there must be yet some other 

 factor at work which has limited its distribution over these islands : 

 and this limitation may account for the fact that it presents practi- 

 cally no variation in coloration, wherein it differs conspicuously from 

 the common partridge of course albinisms, and isabelline varieties, 

 which are pathological phenomena, are not considered in this con- 

 nection. 



So far as recorded observations go, the habits of the two species 

 are much alike ; but information, especially in regard to the redlegged 

 species, is by no means plentiful. The nature of the facts so far 

 recorded are of a kind which rather bring out the differences between 

 the two species than their common resemblances. While both 

 species live in coveys, the redlegged-partridge is nervous and 

 restless, by temperament, so that on alarm the covey, as if panic- 

 stricken, breaks up and scatters, reuniting later, whereas coveys of 

 the grey-partridge keep together. The last named, again, seek safety 

 at once in flight; the former prefers to run, and is with difficulty 

 flushed, a habit which forced itself upon the attention of sportsmen 

 so soon as the bird had become well established. As a consequence 



1 The Natural History of British Game-Birds. 



