LOVE AND COURTSHIP 29 



done by a decimation of the superabundant sex. The 

 widows are not likely to prove inconsolable. Fresh 

 suitors soon appear to woo the favour of the discon- 

 solate ones, and thus the balance of Nature becomes 

 rightly adjusted. It should be understood, of course, 

 that any such step as that indicated was performed 

 quite early in the season, so early as to anticipate 

 any such misfortunes as those that would follow from 

 the loss of one of a pair of nesting birds. The very 

 earliest broods are not as a rule the most successful, 

 since the weather is often less favourable to the nur- 

 ture of the tiny chicks in April and the first weeks of 

 May than in the usual hatching season, which is the 

 latter part of June in most parts of England. 



Such a dry and genial summer as that of 1893 

 naturally favours the increase of most varieties of 

 winged game, and of partridges in particular, and helps 

 to atone for the deficiency of a succession of rainy 

 seasons. But the habits of the partridge itself have 

 somewhat altered of late years. Before the introduction 

 of mowing-machines partridges used to nest almost as 

 much in the open fields as quail, so that the sitting 

 bird was liable to be drenched by continuous rains, 

 from which she was screened imperfectly by the low 

 cover in which she nestled. Sometimes the bird fell 

 a victim to the promptings of maternal solicitude, 



