THE POULTRY KIND. 17 



limits to their excursions. They feed every-where, 

 upon every man's ground ; and no man can 

 say, These birds are fed only by me. Those 

 birds which are nourished by all, belong to all ; 

 nor can any one man, or any set of men, lay 

 claim to them, when still continuing in a state of 

 nature. 



I never walked out about the environs of Paris, 

 that I did not consider the immense quantity of 

 game that was running almost tame on every side 

 of me, as a badge of the slavery of the people ; 

 and what they wished me to observe as an object 

 of triumph, I always regarded with a kind of se- 

 cret compassion : yet this people have no game 

 laws for the remoter parts of the kingdom ; the 

 game is only preserved in a few places for the 

 king, and is free in most places else. In England 

 the prohibition is general ; and the peasant has 

 not a right to what even slaves, as he is taught to 

 call them, are found to possess. 



Of partridges there are two kinds, the grey 

 and the red. The red partridge is the largest of 

 the two, and often perches upon trees; the grey, 

 with which we are best acquainted in England, is 

 most prolific, and always keeps on the ground. 



The partridge seems to be a bird well known all 

 over the world, as it is found in every country, 

 and in every climate ; as well in the frozen regions 

 about the pole, as the torrid tracts under the 

 equator. It even seems to adapt itself to the na- 

 ture of the climate where it resides. In Green- 

 land, the partridge, which is brown in summer, 

 as soon as the icy winter sets in, begins to take a 



