384 TETRAONID.E. 



with reddish brown ; the length one inch seven lines and a 

 half, by one inch and three lines in breadth. The young, 

 like those of our Common Partridge, soon quit the nest 

 after they are released from the egg-shell. They feed also, 

 like other Partridges, on seeds, grain, and insects ; they 

 frequent turnip-fields, but appear to prefer heaths, com- 

 mons, and other waste land, interspersed with bushes. 



As an object of pursuit they are not much esteemed by 

 sportsmen. These birds being stronger on the wing than 

 the Common Partridge, are usually much more wild, and 

 accordingly much more difficult to get shots at within 

 distance. They foot away before a pointer like an old 

 Cock Grouse; and unless the sportsman can drive them 

 into furze, or some other such thick bottom, through 

 which they cannot thread their way, but little chance 

 of success attends him. When wounded, they will run 

 to ground in a rabbit-burrow, or any other hole they can 

 find. 



Occasionally they perch in trees, and have been seen on 

 the upper bar of a gate, or the top of a lift of paling. Mr. 

 Daniel mentions that the covey of fourteen which he found 

 near Colchester, were in a very thick piece of turnips, and 

 for half an hour baffled the exertions of a brace of good 

 pointers to make them take wing ; and the first which did 

 so immediately perched on the hedge, and was shot in that 

 situation, without its being known what bird it was; a 

 leash more were at length sprung from the turnips and 

 shot ; and two days after a brace more were killed by 

 another person. Some years after, when out at Sudbourn 

 with a gentleman who was particularly anxious to kill 

 some of these Red-legged Partridges, and hunted with a 

 brace of capital pointers for them only, the instant the dogs 

 stood, the red birds ran, and always took wing, not with- 



