THE COMMON PARTRIDGE. 97 



as the partridge is generally described, instances 

 have been seen where the love of offspring prevailed, 

 and a vigorous defence was successfully maintained 

 against a more powerful assailant. Among the many 

 instances of such defence mentioned by various 

 authors, we shall notice one of the latest which 

 Mr Selby has recorded in the last edition of his 

 History of British Ornithology* : " Their parental 

 instinct, indeed, is not always confined to mere de- 

 vices for engaging attention ; but where there ex- 

 ists a probability of success, they will fight obsti- 

 nately for the preservation of their young, as appears 

 from many instances already narrated by different 

 writers, and to which the following may be added, 

 for the truth of which I can vouch. A person en- 

 gaged in a field, not far from my residence, had his 

 attention arrested by some objects on the ground, 

 which, upon approaching, he found to be two par- 

 tridges, a male and female, engaged in battle with a 

 carrion-crow ; so successful and so absorbed were 

 they in the issue of the contest, that they actually 

 held the crow, till it was seized, and taken from 

 them by the spectator of the scene. Upon search, 

 the young birds (very lately hatched) were found con- 

 cealed amongst the grass. It would appear, there- 

 fore, that the crow, a mortal enemy to all kinds of 

 young game, in attempting to carry off one of these, 

 had been attacked by the parent birds, and with the 

 above singular success." Such displays are, how- 



Vol. i. p. 435. 

 VOL. VIII. Q 



