212 PEAIEIE AND FOREST. 



out of gunshot, a nuisance that all are so well aware of 

 in our home-bred bird towards the end of the season. 

 In fact, who that shoots regularly cannot remember 

 instances of our partridge disappearing over the far 

 side of a field as soon as the sportsman had entered it ? 

 Now, in years of experience in America, I never saw 

 an instance of this kind : up to the commencement of 

 the close season they would remain almost as tame as 

 they were at the termination of the previous one. A 

 reason for this may be that they seldom pack : only 

 once or twice have I seen more than the usual number 

 of a covey together, and then remarked that the 

 weather had been unusually severe and stormy. 



A peculiarity, however, this bird possesses is that in 

 wet and slushy weather it will frequently when dis- 

 turbed take shelter on the limbs of trees, from which 

 if flushed they aflford the hardest possible shots. In 

 the open it is by no means easy to hit, for its flight is 

 very strong and swift, and frequently irregular, but it 

 does not go far, so that a good marker seldom has 

 much trouble to re-find it. Some persons are under 

 the impression that this ortix is migratory ; however, 

 this is a mistake, for, although they may wander from 

 their breeding place, from constant attention I am 

 convinced that the change of quarters is caused from 

 scarcity of food. On the edges of the dry prairies in 

 Southern Illinois, in early autumn, this bird abounds ; 

 in winter they disappear into the neighbouring thickets 

 and brush, for why ? the prairies are constantly burned 

 at the end of the season, and consequently starvation 

 or change of residence are their alternatives. In one 

 section of the country that I resided in a great portion 

 of the prairie land was too wet to burn, and many a 



