316 BIRDS OF SOMERSETSHIRE. 



The eggs are of a pale yellow-brown ground 

 colour, spotted rather thickly with darker reddish 

 brown spots. 



PARTRIDGE, Perdix cinerea. The Partridge is 

 pretty common throughout the county ; in good 

 breeding seasons indeed it is very numerous, but a 

 cold hard late winter and a wet spring and summer 

 make all the difference in the sort of sport to be 

 expected in September ; but if they are fairly treated 

 and not shot too closely down in the bad seasons 

 there generally seem Partridges enough left to keep 

 up the numbers, which would hardly be the case 

 with Pheasants without artificial help. Very mode- 

 rate game-preserving indeed seems to be sufficient 

 to keep up a good stock of Partridges : if the keeper 

 only takes care to keep down the quadruped vermin, 

 which are the most destructive, such as cats, stoats 

 and polecats, and can keep the birds from the net 

 of the poacher, for the net seems the only very 

 destructive way in which Partridges are poached, 

 he will have very little other trouble, as these birds 

 will generally find food for themselves : this consists 

 mostly of grain of various kinds, wheat, barley and 

 oats, the seeds of various weeds, and a few insects 

 and worms ; ants and their eggs form the favourite 

 food of the young, and indeed in bringing them up 

 by hand this food seems almost necessary. 



The nest is a slight hole scratched in the ground, 

 and the eggs, which are numerous, are usually 



