48 CALLING. 



than a family of partridges. The young feed on small insects, 

 larvae, and insects' eggs; and the old ones lead them to the 

 places where these are deposited, and scrape away the mould. 

 An ant-hill in friable soil is a fat pasture, and myriads of the 

 eggs and larvae are eaten by the young partridges. In the 

 northern parts of the country, the large ant-hills which are 

 in the scattered plantations, more especially those of pines, 

 attract the partridges farther from the cultivated fields, than 

 they are found in places farther to the south; and though 

 those that are bred there, are small or " hill partridges," they 

 are superior in flavour to the more bulky ones ones obtained 

 on the rich lands. It seems to be a law of nature, to which 

 there are few exceptions, that the smaller any production 

 runs, it is, if equally perfect, always the most delicate. Hill 

 mutton, hill grain, and hill vegetables, are so many proofs, 

 and hill partridges are another. 



Whether they are tending their young, or relieved of that, 

 and only mindful of their individual safety, the partridges 

 feed only in the morning and the evening. All the galli- 

 naceous birds feed by sight only. If they have the sense of 

 smelling it is weak, and does not appear to assist much in 

 guiding them to their food; and their bills are so hard, and 

 their feathers so close, that they can hardly be guided to the 

 place or the substance by any thing that we can call touch. 

 Hence they feed only in the daylight in the morning and 

 the evening; and they bask during the heat of the day, or 

 roll themselves in the dust to free their plumage from the 

 nirmides with which they are infested. When the brood is 

 very young they feed to a later period of the day, in order to 

 seize the eggs and larvae of the ants; but when the young 

 have begun to eat grains and seeds, the morning's feeding is 

 sooner over. The night worms and other small animals, 

 which are the food of some of the gallinidse, have mostly retired 

 into the earth before the partridges leave their "jugg," or 



