62 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 



the same is true of other orders. Mr. J. Brodie Innes 

 furnished the following note, which bears upon the 

 point under consideration, to the ' Zoologist ' : 



'Some years ago, among a brood of common 

 brown partridges on my home-farm, there was one 

 white one. The little bird interested not only me, 

 but my grieve and his children, who took so much 

 interest in it that if they saw the covey go off the 

 farm they used to drive them back ; and lest it 

 should be killed or lost, I forbade shooting on the 

 farm. At the proper season it paired with a brown 

 bird, and the result was five white and several brown 

 birds. They were so purely white as to be easily 

 distinguished on the ground from white pigeons by 

 their purity. Again I took care of them. One was 

 killed by a poacher and found its way to a bird- 

 stuffer in Elgin, from whom it was taken by Captain 

 Dunbar Brander, of Seapark, on whose manors it had 

 been poached. I believe he has it still. The other 

 fowl survived the season and paired two white ones 

 together, and the other two with brown ones. I 

 hoped for a good number the next season, but they 

 all disappeared and there have been none since. I 

 should not have been surprised if they had all gone 

 at once in a covey, for they might have been netted 

 in spite of my keepers ; but they were in pairs, and 



