40 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 



That pheasants and partridges often lay together 

 is known to most sportsmen ; sometimes the pheasant 

 hatches out the entire sitting, but this is rare. We 

 believe that in the great majority of those cases in 

 which a pheasant and partridge have laid together, it 

 is the smaller bird that discharges the maternal duties, 

 though not invariably so. The female partridge is, 

 at any rate, the wiser mother, and understands the 

 care of delicate chicks far better than her rival. It 

 does sometimes happen that a domestic fowl which has 

 straggled from a farm-yard joins company with a hen 

 partridge, or, rather, endeavours to oust the wild bird 

 from her claims. Such an arrangement is little in 

 harmony with the jealous temperament of the plucky 

 little partridge, which is pretty certain to evict the 

 newcomer from her home before her domestic affairs 

 have settled down. If the hen has laid several eggs 

 before the birds come to blows, she generally indulges 

 in a free scuffle to maintain her rights. On the other 

 hand, if only one or two eggs have been laid, the hen 

 is less determined in her intrusion, and deserts her 

 post more readily. The hen partridge, left to her own 

 devices, willingly hatches the eggs of the usurper, and 

 cares for the young chickens as tenderly as for her 

 own proper offspring, rearing the bantlings in the 

 fields together with her own young. 



