BIRDS. 325 



HEN PARTRIDGE. 



A HEN partridge came out of a ditch, and ran along shivering 

 with her wings, and crying out as if wounded and unable to 

 get from us. While the dam acted this distress, the boy 

 who attended me saw her brood, that was small and unable 

 to fly, run for shelter into an old fox-earth under the bank. 

 So wonderful a power is instinct. 1 



settling on the boughs of trees apparently with great ease ; an instance 

 of which I have seen in the Earl of Ashburnham's menagerie, where the 

 summer duck (Anas sponsa) flew up and settled on the branch of an 

 oak tree in my presence ; but whether any of them roost on trees in the 

 night, we are not informed by any author that I am acquainted with. 

 I suppose not, but that, like the rest of the genus, they sleep on the 

 water, where the birds of this genus are not always perfectly secure, as 

 will appear from the following circumstance which happened in this 

 neighbourhood a few years since, as I was credibly informed. A female 

 fox was found in the morning drowned in the same pond in which were 

 several geese, and it was supposed that in the night the fox swam into 

 the pond to devour the geese, but was attacked by the gander, which, 

 being the most powerful in its own element, buffeted the fox with its 

 wings about the head till it was drowned. MARKWICK. 



1 It is not uncommon to see an old partridge feign itself wounded and 

 run along on the ground fluttering and crying before either dog or man, 

 to draw them away from its helpless unfledged young ones. I have seen 

 it often, and once in particular I saw a remarkable instance of the old 

 bird's solicitude to save its brood. As I was hunting a young pointer, 

 the dog ran on a brood of very small partridges ; the old bird cried, flut- 



