38 THE PARTRIDGE. 



While the young are doing this, the old bird acts her 

 part to admiration. She tumbles, or rolls along on the 

 ground, and pretends that her wings and legs are 

 broken, so that the person, instead of searching for 

 the young, is made to believe he can, in the first place, 

 catch the mother without difficulty. When she has 

 led the intruder a few rods from h er young in this 

 way, she all at once takes wing, and is out of sight in 

 a moment. 



The Partridge does not, like most of our birds, 

 migrate into a warmer climate during the winter, but 

 is a constant inhabitant among us. 



Mr. Wilson relates a curious anecdote of one of 

 these birds. While walking in the woods, he started 

 a mother with only a single young one, which appear- 

 ed to be only a few days old. The old bird fluttered 

 before him as usual, for a moment, and then, as though 

 she recollected a surer way of saving her young, 

 suddenly flew back, and seizing it with her bill, to his 

 astonishment, rose above the woods, and with great 

 rapidity and steadiness, flew out of his sight with it 

 in her mouth. 



This, continues Mr. Wilson, was a striking instance 

 of something more than what is termed blind instinct. 

 The bird acted as the circumstances required. To 

 carry away a whole brood in this manner at once, 

 would have been impossible, and to attempt to save 

 one and leave the others, would have been unnatural. 

 She therefore usually takes the only possible mode of 

 saving a whole brood, by feigning herself lame and 

 unable to fly, so as to attract the attention of the per- 

 son who intrudes upon her. But in the present in- 



