NATURAL HISTORY 47 



for roadsides and foot-paths, where the 

 nest is in constant danger from passing 

 boys and wandering dogs. 



Some attribute this inconvenient habit 

 to a desire for grit, which can thus be 

 found quite handy to the nest ; but it 

 seems more probable that this strongly 

 marked tendency is rather due to the old 

 birds welcoming the proximity of an open 

 dry space where they can take their young 

 when hatched. 



The nest is a circular scrape in the 

 bare earth, in which the drab-coloured 

 eggs are daily laid, till the full number of 

 anything between ten and twenty be 

 reached. Nests with larger numbers, as 

 many as thirty -five eggs having been 

 recorded, can only be set down to the 

 joint efforts of two hens laying in the one 

 nest. Pheasants are sad offenders in this 

 respect ; they constantly show a desire to 

 set up house with the partridge hens, laying 

 their eggs among the others, to the serious 

 detriment of the family arrangements. 



Partridges rarely lay their first egg 



