174 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



suggests it may be owing in some measure to the wet 

 summer, which has kept the soil in such a wet state 

 as to prevent their dusting themselves so effectually 

 as usual. 



The courageous and almost fearless conduct of 

 birds during the breeding season, even in the case of 

 species at other times remarkable for their timi- 

 dity, is very striking, though it has often attracted 

 the attention of the natural observer. I have, a 

 little way back, mentioned an instance of such 

 daring courage in the domestic hen. Mr. Selby 

 sends me another, in the case of the partridge, 

 which occurred in his neighbourhood, and which 

 was observed by a person on whose veracity he can 

 rely, and who indeed produced evidence quite con- 

 clusive of the nature of the scene of which he had 

 been an eyewitness. 



Happening to be walking in a grass^field one 

 day in the beginning of July, his attention was 

 arrested by cries and screams, which he soon re- 

 cognized as those of a partridge in distress, when 

 alarmed for the safety of her young brood. On 

 looking to the quarter whence the cries proceed- 

 ed, he perceived two partridges engaged in a se- 

 vere conflict with a carrion-crow, which, no doubt, 

 had made an attack upon the newly hatched young, 

 and attempted to carry some of them off. This 

 the parents resented with such determination and 

 vigour, as not only to prevent the crow from exe- 

 cuting his intentions, but to compel him to stand 



