266 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



they are, get up into apple trees : pheasants also in woods sleep 



on trees to avoid foxes ; while pea-fowls climb to the tops of the 



highest trees round their owner's 



house for security, let the weather be 



ever so cold or blowing. Partridges, 



it is true, roost on the ground, not 



having the faculty of perching ; but 



then the same fear prevails in their 



minds ; for through apprehensions 



from pole-cats and stoats, they never 



trust themselves to coverts, but 



nestle together in the midst of large fields, far removed from 



hedges and coppices, which they love to haunt in the day, and 



where at that season they can sculk more secure from the ravages 



of rapacious birds.* 



As to ducks and geese, their awkward splay web-feet forbid 

 them to settle on trees ; they therefore, in the hours of darkness 

 and danger, betake themselves to their own element, the water, 

 where., amidst large lakes and pools, like ships riding at anchor, 

 they float the whole night long in peace and security.f 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 



* A foreign genus of ducks (dendronessa) , of beautiful and even gorgeous plumage, roosts 

 habitually on trees ; as do also oitr common heron and its congeners, birds which would seem 

 equally ill-fitted for perching. ED. 



t Guinea fowls not only roost on high, but in hard weather resort, even in the day-time, to the 

 very tops of the highest trees. Last winter, when the ground was covered with snow, I discovered 

 all my guinea fowls, in the middle of the day, sitting on the highest boughs of some very tall 

 elms, chattering and making a great clamour: I ordered them to be driven down lest they should 

 be frozen to death in so elevated a situation, but this was not effected without much difficulty, 

 they being very unwilling to quit their lofty abode, notwithstanding one of them had its feet so 

 much frozen that we were obliged to kill it. I know not how to account for this, unless it was 

 occasioned by their aversion to the snow on the ground, they being birds that come originally 

 from a hot climate. 



Notwithstanding the awkward splay web-feet (as Mr. White calls them) of the duck genus, 

 ome of the foreign species have the power of settling on the boughs of trees apparently with 

 ffreat ease, an instance of which I have seen in the earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the 

 summer duck, anas sponsa (the dendronessa sponsa of modern nomenclature), flew up and settled 

 on the branch of an oak tree in my presence; but whether any of them roost on trees in the 

 night we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose not, but that, 

 like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where the birds of this genus are not always 

 perfectly secure, as will appear from the following circumstance, which happened in this neigh- 

 bourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was found in the morn- 

 ing drowned in the same pond in which were several geese, and it was supposed that in the night 

 the fox swam into the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being 

 most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the head till it was 

 drowned. MABKWICK. 



