BIRDS. 433 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A HEN partridge 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 acted this 

 distress, the boy who attended me saw her brood, that 

 was small and unable to fly, run for shelter into an old 

 fox-earth under the bank. So wonderful a power is 

 instinct 6 . 



them) of the duck genus, some of the foreign species have the power of 

 settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease ; an instance 

 of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the 

 summer duck ( Anas sponsa) flew up and settled on the branch of an oak 

 tree in my presence; but whether any of them roost on trees in the night, 

 we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with. I suppose 

 not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the water, where 

 the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as will appear 

 from the following circumstance which happened in this neighbourhood 

 a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female fox was found 

 in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were several geese, 

 and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam into the pond to de- 

 vour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, being the most 

 powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its wings about the 

 head till it was drowned. MARKWICK. 



6 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and 

 run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or man, 



F F 



