22 FAMILIAR WILD BIRDS. 



from twelve to thirty, may commonly be met with in 

 any of our cultivated districts. They are also frequently 

 seen on the edges of moors, waste lands, and commons, 

 amongst gorse and broom, and sometimes, but not often, 

 in woods. 



In the morning the birds repair to the stubble, grass 

 fields, and hedgeside, which at midday they quit for the 

 shelter of turnip fields, clover, or potatoes, returning 

 towards evening to their former feeding-grounds. They 

 roost principally in the open, lying in a cluster with their 

 heads outward. As they sometimes use the same sleeping- 

 place for many nights in succession, farmers and game- 

 preservers protect them from the net of the poacher by 

 sticking bushes of thorns at intervals over the ground. 



Like many other birds, the Partridge is fond of 

 dusting itself, and may occasionally be seen shaking and 

 shuffling its feathers in the soft dust of the turnpike 

 road. Long familiarity with the common surroundings of 

 man has produced in the Partridge an indifference to 

 passing objects almost amounting to contempt, and coveys 

 may be seen quietly squatting in close proximity to pass- 

 ing vehicles, even a railway train being apparently insuffi- 

 cient to disturb their equanimity. Whether the Partridge 

 suffers from any peculiarity in its organs of vision, or 

 whether it is not quite as intelligent as some other birds, 

 maybe considered open questions ; but numerous interesting 

 circumstances have been noted which would seem to point 

 to one of these theories. As cases in point, we may 

 mention the frequent instances in which Partridges kill 

 themselves by flying against telegraph wires, and the 

 extraordinary fact that occasionally an entire covey will 

 glide out over the sea and settle down on its surface, as 



