66 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OP ANIMALS. CHAP. Ill, 



vulture or eagle to approach the nest, but would drive 

 them away with every appearance of fury.* The 

 missel thrush, during the breeding season, will fight 

 even the magpie or jay.f And the female titmouse 

 will frequently allow herself to be made a prisoner, 

 rather than quit her nest ; or, if she herself escape, she 

 will speedily return, menacing the invaders by hissing 

 like a snake, and biting all who approach her : this 

 we have ourselves experienced. The artifices employed 

 by the partridge, the lapwing, the ring plover, the 

 pewit, and numerous other land birds, to blind the 

 vigilance and divert the attention of those who may 

 come near their little ones, is equally curious. The 

 partridges, both male and female, conduct their young 

 out to feed, and carefully assist them in their search 

 for food ; but, if disturbed in the midst of this employ- 

 ment, the male, after first giving the alarm by uttering 

 a peculiar cry of distress, throws himself directly in the 

 way of danger, and endeavours, by feigning lameness 

 or inability to fly, to distract the attention and mislead 

 the efforts of the enemy, thus giving his mate time to 

 conduct her little brood to a place of security. ( ' A 

 partridge," says White, " came out of a ditch, and ran 

 along, shivering with her wings, and crying out as if 

 wounded, and unable to get from us. While the dam 

 feigned this distress, a boy, who attended me, saw the 

 brood, which was small and unable to fly, run for 

 shelter into an old fox's hole under the bank." The 

 lapwing pushes forward to meet her foes, employing 

 every art to allure them from the abode of her young : 

 she rises from the ground with a loud screaming voice, 

 as if just flushed from hatching, though, probably, at 

 the same time, not within a hundred yards from the nest : 

 she afterwards whines and screams round the invaders ; 

 and invariably becomes more clamorous as she retires 

 further from the nest. The ring plover will flutter 

 along the ground as if crippled ; and, if pursued, will 



* White of Selborne. f Montague. 



$ Bingley's Animal Biography, vol. ii. p. 479. 



