44 GALLING. 



to perch till the young be so far grown that they are able to 

 perch along with her ; and while they are immature the male 

 never quits the neighbourhood, but acts as a sentinel, watchful 

 for the safety of all his families, but occasionally perching for 

 that purpose. If the male is killed in the early part of the 

 season, the females join the packs of those whose cry they 

 can best hear ; but if the nest of the female is destroyed, she 

 only shifts her ground, continuing in the pack of the same 

 male. The differences of sex appear in the young birds when 

 they are about half grown ; and by that time the males are 

 generally beginning to flock together, until they are again 

 separated by the impulses of another year. 



The black grous being a bird of lower situations than the 

 red, it is found in more places of the British islands, being 

 found wherever there are wilds of sufficient extent, with 

 heath or coppice, or tufts of grass and rushes, to afford cover ; 

 but it is not anywhere met with in such numbers as the red 

 grous are on the Scottish moors. 



WITH THE TAKSI NAKED. 



There are two genera of the British gallinse with the 

 tarsi naked of feathers, partridges (perdrix) and quails (cotur- 

 nix), the former resident birds, and the latter summer visi- 

 tants, though a few sometimes remain in certain warm 

 situations, near the shores of the Channel. 



In the general form and attitudes of their bodies, and also 

 in the ground-colour of the greater part of their plumage, the 

 partridges and quails bear some resemblance to each other; 

 and they also so far correspond in their haunts and habits, as 

 to form a division of gallinaceous birds different from those 

 that have been mentioned; but still they are so different, 

 that the one can never be mistaken for the other. If we 

 except the pheasant, which, though abundant in many places, 

 is an imported bird, and which is the gallinaceous bird of 



