NATURAL HISTORY 39 



Though the scanty food-supply and 

 manifold hardships incident to life among 

 the bleak surroundings which they have 

 chosen for their home prevent their ever 

 increasing to anything like the numbers 

 of their more favoured brethren of the 

 arable lands, still they manage to hold 

 their own in the struggle for existence, 

 and on our northern fells, the bare heaths 

 of Surrey, and the borders of most moor- 

 lands there are always to be found a few 

 coveys of these hardy stragglers. Seasoned 

 perhaps by adversity, they seem to suffer 

 less from the vagaries of our climate than 

 the dwellers in the plains, and year in and 

 year out little difference is to be noticed 

 in their numbers. 



The partridge chick, a tiny morsel of 

 greyish brown down, with black mark- 

 ings on the head and stripes down the 

 back, usually comes into the world some 

 time between the middle of June and the 

 first weeks of July, the date of hatching 

 being locally very constant, but varying 

 in different districts, southern hatching 



