128 THE VIRGINIAN PARTRIDGE. 
THE VIRGINIAN PARTRIDGE. 
** Nantes in gurgite vasto.” Virgil. 
“ Lixe the turkeys, many of the weaker partridges often fail 
into the water while thus attempting to cross, and generally 
perish; for, although they swim surprisingly, they have not 
muscular power sufficient to keep up a protracted struggle.” 
(See Biography of Birds, p. 388.) 
Birds which can “ swim surprisingly” will never 
“perish” by the act of swimming; neither would 
they be under the necessity of having recourse to “a 
protracted struggle” in a movement which requires 
no struggle at all. A bird struggling in the act of 
swimming, in order to save itself from drowning, is 
about the sameas if we were to struggle in our usual act 
of walking, lest we perish therein. The very mention 
of “a protracted struggle” argues that the partridge 
cannot swim. A partridge on the water is nearly in 
as great a scrape as a shark on shore. ‘The latter, 
by floundering, may, perchance, get into the water 
again ; still we cannot say that a shark moves sur- 
prisingly on land: and the former, by help of its 
feet, may possibly reach the river’s bank, through 
an element as fatal to it as the shore is to the shark. 
All birds, whether alive or dead, must naturally float 
on the surface of the water; but all birds cannot 
swim: otherwise those birds which we commonly call 
land birds would have to be new-modelled in form, 
and would require a very different kind of plumage. 
We startle at the novel information of a partridge 
“ swimming surprisingly,” and we are anxious to 
