AS CONCERNING PARTRIDGE-NESTS 39 



involved is the continuation of the species, which 

 can only be perpetuated at a loss. The reason for 

 this must be looked for in the risks attaching to the 

 rearing of the young birds, which are exposed to the 

 attacks of snakes and ground vermin by reason of 

 their terrestrial habits. 



The number of eggs appears, likewise, to vary 

 with the conditions surrounding the reproduction of 

 the young. If the food supply be plentiful, and the 

 weather propitious, the chances of a large number of 

 eggs being laid are naturally enhanced. The par- 

 tridge is so small a bird that we should hardly expect 

 her to cover more than a dozen eggs in her nest. 

 Sometimes the number falls, we admit, as low as six 

 or seven ; but such small clutches are generally the 

 result of a second laying. On the other hand, we 

 can vouch for such numbers as nineteen and twenty- 

 one eggs being laid and incubated by a single bird. 

 The precision with which every separate egg is packed 

 neatly into its own proper space in the nest is truly 

 marvellous. Sometimes two hen partridges lay in one 

 nest, when their combined contribution has been 

 known to reach a total of thirty-six, not including a 

 pheasant's addition of a single egg thirty-one 

 chicks hatched out of the thirty-seven eggs, thirty of 

 the number being young partridges, 



