THE LARGER INLAND BIRDS. 



GROUSE. No one would for a moment imagine that there 

 scoticus.) h ac j ever b een grouse in the neighbourhood of 

 Formby ; but many old Lancashire books mention 

 the fact, that in winter grouse often forsook the 

 fells for the low-lying mosses. 



PHEASANT. 



( Phasianus 

 colchicus. ) 



Thanks to the efficient "Keepering" of the present 

 day, there is not much fear of this bird ever 

 becoming extinct. Universally plentiful. 



PARTRIDGE. Like the pheasant, this bird is too well looked 

 (Perdix dnerea.) after by the keepers to become scarce.* 



PARTRIDGE. A note of my father's. "One of my greatest favourites was a hen partridge, 

 which became completely domesticated at the house of the gamekeeper at Ainsdale. She used to 

 run in and out of the house far more familiarly and infinitely more prettily than the most tame of 

 the domestic hens which lived about the place. As I sat in a little alcove near the doorway, 

 she would often come pecking warily close to my feet, and nothing but a deliberate insult to her 

 confidence would drive her chuckling angrily away. She was very fond of sitting over what is_ not 

 very elegantly termed the sinkstone, in the kitchen of the keeper's house, for there she often picked 

 up scraps which might not otherwise have fallen to her share. I think I never saw a bird so 

 plump as she was, and certainly never a wild bird so freed by kindness from the suspicion of her 

 race. But alas ! when the springtime came, some gay deceiver of her own tribe came also, and 

 the warm shelter and friends of the winter were utterly forgotten. She heard his voice and left 

 us for the desolation of the sandhills; but though she left us, I have not forgotten hr, and I only 

 hope that I did not shoot her in the following September." 



