

COMMON PARTRIDGE. 373 



idea struck him that she had removed her eggs ; and he 

 found her, before he left the field, sitting under the hedge 

 upon twenty-one eggs, and she brought off nineteen birds. 

 The round of ploughing had occupied about twenty minutes, 

 in which time she, probably assisted by the cockbird, had 

 removed the twenty-one eggs to a distance of about forty 

 yards." 



Incubation with the Partridge lasts twenty-one days, and 

 the great hatching-time in the southern parts of England is 

 from the twentieth of June till the end of that month. Mr. 

 Selby observers, that " as soon as the young are excluded, 

 the male bird joins the covey, and displays equal anxiety 

 with the female for their support and defence. There are 

 few persons conversant with country affairs who have not 

 witnessed the confusion produced in a brood of young Par- 

 tridges by any sudden alarm ; or who have not admired 

 the stratagems to which the parent birds have recourse, in 

 order to deceive and draw off the intruder. Their 

 parental instinct, indeed, is not always confined to mere 

 devices for engaging attention ; but where there exists 

 a probability of success, they will fight obstinately for 

 the preservation of their young, as appear from many 

 instances already narrated by different writers, and to 

 which the following may be added, for the truth of which 

 I can vouch : A person engaged in a field, not far from 

 my residence, had his attention arrested by some objects 

 on the ground, which, upon approaching, he found to be 

 two Partridges, a male and female, engaged in battle with 

 a Carrion Crow ; so successful and so absorbed were they 

 in the issue of the contest, that they actually held the 

 Crow till it was seized and taken from them by the 

 spectator of the scene. Upon search, the young birds, 

 very lately hatched, were found concealed amongst the 



