30 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 



preferring to perish at her post rather than to desert 

 her precious charges. Many other birds would do the 

 same. 



Years ago, when wandering through the pic- 

 turesque birch woods of the Dee valley, we climbed 

 to a chaffinch nest, only to find the little hen lying 

 dead upon the eggs which she had died to incubate. 

 But the partridge is a bird of stronger attachments 

 than most feathered fowl. The nest itself scarcely 

 deserves the usual title, being, in fact, hardly more 

 than a slight scraping in the surface of the soil, a 

 cavity of no depth, redeemed from absolute bareness 

 by the addition of a few leaves, dead and dry as 

 tinder, and a few stems of withered grass as unpre- 

 tentious an affair as could be imagined, but yet 

 amply sufficient after all for the purpose which it has 

 to serve. Many partridges still nestle out in the 

 open fields, but experience plays an important part in 

 the economy of Nature. The frequent destruction of 

 nests in the open meadows has convinced many female 

 partridges of the advantages supplied to nesting birds 

 by the shelter afforded by the briars and brambles 

 that festoon the banks of the older and untrimmed 

 hedgerows. Similarly, an old and bleached root of a 

 tree, to all appearances cumbering the soil uselessly 

 enough, in reality provides a serviceable shelter to a 



