OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 291 



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 darn 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 !* 



air to nearly as great a height as before, alighted at their own pond, and 

 were at it long before their driver, notwithstanding the latter went in 

 a direct line. This was the more singular, because these geese were fat, 

 and heavy. At Tittenhanger Green, in 1828, there was a flock of from 

 fifteen to twenty geese, which used to indulge in aerial excursions like the 

 above. 



A hen which had, for three successive seasons, been occupied in rearing 

 broods of ducks, became quite habituated to their taking the water. In the 

 middle of a pond to which the ducklings resorted, there was a large stone, 

 to which the hen would fly, and patiently await the brood, as they swam 

 around it. On the fourth year, she sat on her own eggs, and, expecting 

 her chickens to take to the water, as on former occasions, she flew to the 

 stone in the middle of the pond, and called them to her with much 

 earnestness, but they did not feel inclined to follow her dictates. 



The following fact is related by Professor Scarpa : A duck, accustomed 

 to feed out of its owner's hand, was once offered some perfumed bread, 

 which it at first refused to take. After several attempts, however, it at 

 length complied, took the bread in its bill, and, carrying it to a neighbour's 

 pond, moved it in various directions, as if to wash away the disagreeable 

 taste and smell, and then swallowed it. 



A correspondent in London's Magazine of Natural History says, " I 

 have lately seen a preternaturally large, but perfect goose's egg, contain- 

 ing a smaller one within it, the inner one possessing its proper calcareous 

 shell. " This is certainly a very singular production. We have frequently 

 known shells to have two yolks, but this is the only instance we have 

 met with of one egg containing another entire one within it. 



Our friend, Mr Andrew Shortrede, informs us, that he remembers, on 

 his father's farm of Monklaw, near Jedburgh, a duck, which in the spring 

 laid black eggs. As the season advanced, the blackness gradually went 

 off, till, at the end of autumn, the eggs were whiter than those of an 

 ordinary duck. This animal was of rather a longer shape than usual. 



On the same farm, there was another duck which laid two eggs in a/lay. 

 The fact was proved by locking the bird up, when one egg was found 

 early in the morning, and another in the evening. This remarkable duck 

 was killed by a servant ignorant of its virtues. ED. 



* 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, 

 to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. 1 have seen 

 it often, and once, in particular, I saw a remarkable instance of the old 

 bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting with a young pointer, 

 the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges ; the old bird cried, flut- 

 tered, and ran tumbling along, just before the dog's nose, till she had 

 drawn him to a considerable distance, when she took wing, and flew still 



