312 OBSERVATIONS ON BIRDS. 



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 help- 

 less unfledged young ones. I 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 a young 

 pointer, the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges : 

 the old bird cried, fluttered, and ran tumbling along just 

 before the dog's nose till she had drawn him to a consider- 

 able distance, when she took wing, and flew still farther off, 

 but not out of the field : on this the dog returned to me, 

 near which place the young ones lay concealed in the grass, 

 which the old bird no sooner perceived than she flew back 

 again to us, settled just before the dog's nose again, and by 

 rolling and tumbling about, drew off his attention from her 

 young, and thus preserved her brood a second time. I have 

 also seen, when a kite has been hovering over a covey of 

 young partridges, the old birds fly up at the bird of prey, 

 screaming and fighting with all their might to preserve 

 their brood. MAEKWICK. 



A HYBRID PHEASANT. 



Lord Stawell sent me from the great lodge in the Holt a 

 curious bird for my inspection. It was found by the 

 spaniels of one of his keepers in a coppice, and shot on the 

 wing. The shape, air, and habit of the bird, and the 

 scarlet ring round the eyes, agreed well with the appearance 

 of a cock pheasant ; but then the head, and neck, and 

 breast, and belly were of a glossy black : and though it 

 weighed three pounds three ounces and a-half,* the weight 

 of a full-grown cock pheasant, yet there were no signs of 



* Hen pheasants usually weigh only two pounds ten ounces. 



