98 MY NATURE NOTEBOOK. 



the birds desert their eggs most easily when they are 

 " sprung " that is, when the young are chipping their 

 shells to get out. This seems contrary to natural 

 instinct, and therefore improbable ; for it stands to 

 reason that Nature will not more willingly sacrifice 

 the valuable asset of a nestful of young than an 

 easily replaced clutch of new-laid eggs. If time is 

 money in human affairs, it is priceless to breeding 

 partridges, who have so scanty a margin to spare at 

 either end of the breeding season. 



THE SITTING PARTRIDGE. 



There may, however, be this foundation for the 

 gamekeepers' belief that when the eggs are being 

 chipped the mother partridge is 'less able to protect 

 them from the weather. When the eggs are all sound 

 and solid she sits down upon them close, and her 

 closely overlapping feathers keep out much cold and 

 wet that would otherwise reach the eggs along the 

 surface of the ground. When the young are chipping 

 their eggs she sits much higher stands over them, 

 in fact. If you visit a nest frequently you can tell 

 by this attitude of the sitting bird when the critical 

 period has arrived ; sometimes, indeed, the difference 

 is marked enough to make her visible at a distance 

 upon her nest, where previously, sitting low, she was 

 safely screened from sight. So it may easily happen 

 that when the hen partridge, in obedience to the 

 instinct which tells her to give her delicate little 

 chicklings free play in the first great trial of their 

 lives, stands lightly over her eggs, she unwittingly 



