82 PARTRIDGES 



straight from point to point. The exist- 

 ence of any hybrid between the two 

 species has yet to be proved. 



The range of the common partridge is 

 wide ; draw a line on the map from 

 Brussels to Venice ; roughly speaking, 

 the country east of this line is its natural 

 habitat, stretching northwards through 

 Scandinavia almost up to the Arctic 

 Circle, and ranging southwards as far as 

 the Caucasus Mountains, and eastwards 

 into Northern Persia and Central Asia 

 up to the Altai Mountains, east of which 

 range its place is taken by a smaller but 

 closely allied species. 



In this country the partridge is gener- 

 ally distributed through every district 

 where the land is cultivated and game 

 preserved. The application of modern 

 scientific methods to the care and pre- 

 servation of partridges has gone far to 

 modify their natural distribution. 



The grey partridge with us has less 

 traits of the migrant than perhaps any 

 other of our native birds. Living in an 



