PART1UDGE. 217 



eggs of a pair of Pheasants, the hen of which had been killed, 

 on the estate of Colonel Burgoyne, in Essex. The hen 

 bird alone sits, the male keeping watch, and when the young 

 are hatched he joins the covey, and protects and feeds them 

 with the dam. 



The eggs, which are of a pale greenish brown colour, are 

 laid towards the end of May or the beginning of June, and 

 are usually ten or twelve in number, but sometimes as many 

 as fifteen, eighteen, or even twenty. The 'Norfolk News' 

 mentions a nest hatched at Ditchingham between the 13th. 

 and 18th. of April, 1851. Twenty-two eggs are recorded to 

 have been found in one nest, and thirty-one in another, two 

 hen birds having occupied the same one, and in the former 

 instance the cock bird gathered half of the united family under 

 his wings, the pair sitting side by side, but looking different 

 ways. The young leave the nest almost as soon as they are 

 hatched. Incubation lasts about twenty-one days, beginning 

 about the 20th. of June. 



'It is a curious fact,' says Mr. Jesse, 'that when young 

 Partridges are hatched and have left the nest, the two portions 

 of each shell will be found placed the one within the other. 

 I believe that this is invariably the case. This is doubtless 

 done by the chicks themselves in their last successful effort 

 to escape from prison.' Only one brood is reared in the 

 year, unless indeed the first nest be destroyed, and so a third, 

 if the second happen to be, but in these cases the eggs are 

 fewer, and the young are said to be less strong. 



The Partridge varies much in weight according to the quality 

 of the country it inhabits. Male; weight, about fifteen ounces; 

 length, one foot and half an inch; bill, light greyish blue, 

 strong and short, the upper mandible a good deal curved, 

 overhanging and extending beyond the lower one; iris, hazel; 

 over and behind it is a bare space of bright red, and a band 

 of light yellowish chesnut red, edged with grey. Forehead and 

 head on the sides, light yellowish chesnut, edged with grey; 

 crown, greyish brown, with slender yellow shaft lines; neck 

 on the back and sides, and the nape, grey, minutely waved 

 with blackish brown; chin and throat, light yellowish ches- 

 nut, edged with bluish grey; breast, bluish grey, minutely 

 freckled and waved with blackish brown, and on its lower 

 part is a horse-shoe-shaped mark of brownish red, on a white 

 ground; the shaft streaks white; on the sides it is barred with 

 chesnut; back, minutely banded with dots of brownish black, 



