PAETEIDQE. 211 



In some countries they are stationary, but in others are 

 said to be migratory. 



They frequent the cultivated districts, but coveys are not 

 nnfrequently met with on the edges of moors in the neigh- 

 bourhood of the former localities. They often wander to 

 wastes and commons, where gorse, broom, and other wild 

 shrubs and plants flourish, and occasionally enter woods. 



Partridges are fond of dusting themselves, and shuffle their 

 feathers, in roads or dry places, like so many other birds. In 

 the mornings they repair to the stubble, grass fields, and 

 hedge sides, which they leave for the shelter of clover, turnip, 

 or potato fields during the midday, returning again towards 

 evening to their former feeding-grounds. At night they 

 generally lodge in the middle of a field, to be the more 

 secure, sometimes keeping to the same place for a fortnight 

 together; but this exposes them to the nets of the fowler, 

 and they require to be protected by bushes being stuck in 

 the ground at intervals. They lie in a cluster with their 

 heads outward. Where well preserved, they become very tame, 

 and exhibit much indifference to the presence of man. It is 

 curious to see how totally they already seem to disregard the 

 passing of a railway train, sometimes alighting close to one, 

 or remaining in a field adjoining quite near. Some have been 

 killed by flying against a train in motion, and others, as indeed 

 various other birds, by dashing in their flight against the 

 telegraph wires, the 'electric shock' proving fatal to them. 



Like so man}'- other birds, they also, and even in an especial 

 degree, use earnest devices to entice away supposed enemies 

 from their nest. One has been known to feign to be dead, 

 and scarcely could be frightened to get up, but then it flew 

 away quite well; another to peck at the feet of a person who 

 approached her young. 'The art of the Partridge is familiar 

 to the sportsman, and excites admiration in all the lovers of 

 nature. At the signal for silence and retreat the infant young 

 may be seen to run to the nearest cover, while the parent 

 seems seized with a sudden lameness and inability to fly; or 

 the male will practice this device, fluttering off to a distance 

 in an apparently disabled manner, and then suddenly dropping, 

 as if dead, will return by some circuitous route to the place 

 he had left, the hen meanwhile having collected the young 

 under her wings. Or else she flutters along the ground with 

 drooping wings in an opposite direction to that which the 

 brood has taken, and not until she has successfully misled the 



