388 TETRAONID^. 



deposited in a circle of only a few inches in diameter, it 

 would appear that the birds arrange themselves also in a 

 circle, of which their tails form the centre, all the heads 

 being outwards ; a disposition which instinct has suggested 

 as the best for observing the approach of any of their nu- 

 merous enemies, whatever may be the direction, and thus 

 increase their security by enabling them to avoid a surprise. 

 In the morning early they again visit the stubble for a 

 breakfast, and pass the rest of the day as before. Fields 

 of clover or turnips are very favourite places of resort 

 during the day. 



Many Partridges are annually reared from eggs that are 

 found, or mowed out in cutting clover or grass, these eggs 

 being hatched under hens. The young birds should be fed 

 with ants'-eggs, curd, grits ; small grain, when the birds are 

 old enough, and some vegetables. Partridges thus hatched 

 and reared become so tame as even to be troublesome, run- 

 ning close about the feet of those who are in the habit of 

 supplying them several times daily with food ; and though 

 they live for years afterwards in an aviary, there is but 

 one record, as far as I am aware, of the Partridge breeding 

 in confinement ; Sir Thomas Marion Wilson, Bart, had 

 a small covey of seven or eight hatched and reared by the 

 parent birds in his aviary at Charlton in the summer of 

 1842. I saw these birds in 1843. Dry summers are par- 

 ticularly favourable to the breeding of Partridges ; White, 

 in his History of Selborne, notes, that after the dry sum- 

 mers of 1740 and 1741, the Partridges swarmed to such a 

 degree, that unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty, and 

 sometimes thirty brace in a day. This, however, is but 

 moderate sport to some that might be quoted. T. W. Coke, 

 Esq. (the late Earl of Leicester), on the 7th of October, 

 1797, upon his manor at Warham, and within a mile's 

 circumference, bagged forty brace of Partridges in eight 



