QUIET PARTRIDGE-SHOOTING 



from her nest sooner than desert her eggs or nestlings. 

 Mr. Macpherson, in his monograph on this bird, men- 

 tions a case of a sitting hen partridge which allowed 

 a schoolgirl to pick her up from her nest and carry her 

 home in her apron, a distance of a mile. Happily the 

 order was at once given to replace her, and the brave 

 mother not only quietly resumed her seat, but in due 

 time hatched out a handsome covey of partridges. 

 When the young are hatched, the old birds are equally 

 courageous, and will practise curious shifts and strata- 

 gems to save their fledglings. A partridge has been 

 seen to feign itself wounded, and run tumbling and 

 apparently lame just in front of the nose of a pointer, 

 which had come suddenly upon its brood ; and this 

 stratagem was not once, but twice enacted. 



It has been asserted by many naturalists, sportsmen, 

 and gamekeepers that, during the nesting season, the 

 hen partridge loses for the time, or has the power of 

 suppressing the strong scent which characterises her 

 race. And it has been even said that the nearer a bird 

 nests to a path or building, the greater is this power 

 of suppression. This is a point in natural history 

 which, it seems to me, has never yet been established. 

 There are some people who observe carefully who are 

 by no means convinced of the partridge's power of sup- 

 pression in this respect. Only a year or so back a 

 writer to the Field stated that a fox-terrier of his had 

 found several nests of pheasants and partridges, some 

 with eggs only, some with the birds sitting. " He 

 winds them at a considerable distance," says the writer, 

 "and when close to the nest points and wags his tail 

 violently." As this fox-terrier seemed also to be in the 

 habit of finding nests of hens and even of small birds, 

 he may have developed a faculty not possessed by all 

 sporting dogs. 



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