CHAPTER IX.-PARTRIDGES. 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



WE have in the British Isles two varieties of the perdix, 

 that known to sportsmen as the English partridge 

 the original " nut-brown bird," and the French partridge or 

 redleg. The former is immeasurably the superior game bird 

 of the two, and has many claims to admiration, for, besides 

 being indigenous, it is naturally far more plentiful in our 

 much maligned islands than in any other country. The part- 

 ridge, moreover, satisfies a want which would be sorely felt 

 had we no such bird to help us through. In the case of 

 grouse, pheasants, and all the rest of the category, the more 

 the land is looked after, and the higher the cultivation, the 

 less congenial is it to the habits and tastes of these game 

 birds. But the partridge's beau-ideal of a home is an 

 essentially English spot in the landscape. A bright warm 

 wheat stubble, a pasture growing such grasses as form its 

 best-liked cover, with a little expanse of broken ground, 

 overgrown with brake, hard by, and you have just the 

 locality a partridge loves to haunt. In character, it is 

 a quiet easy-going bird, and one that is little concerned 



