Home Notes.



349



cal Gardens has not favoured us of late ! “ The Field,” which has


so large a scope, and which can expatiate on a hundred subjects,

has opened its capacious maw to swallow up all his material! but if

we do not all try to help, our humble journal might go under,

especially in these war days.


And so it is that I take up my pen, in addition to my blue

pencil—though it should be noted, very much oftener do I wield the

former than the latter—to endeavour to set an example or to en¬

courage. Not that I have much to say. I have reared some

partridges; only three; for a monstrous Rhode Island red hen

squashed five or six. The truth was, no bantam was broody at the

time that the eggs, already partly incubated, were taken.


Yet this little trinity of plump partridges is decidedly better

than none, for they are ridiculously tame, running about in the

aviary yard along with juvenile silkies and Japanese bantams, the

first to come to one’s call, and really more trustful than the bantams.


They shake their short rufous tails, stand up and flap their

wings, which as yet they never make use of for flight, and almost

run over my feet.


Most jolly little birds, which will I hope remain where they

are. They needed fresh ants’ eggs when they were first hatched, but

they soon learnt to devour flies, cocoons, and after that, insectivorous

food and soaked melox: hut this bill of fare was considerably added

to by minute insects found by themselves in the grass. And now,

with September come in, they are three well-grown partridges, safe

from gun-shot.


Who was the calendar saint who kept a tame partridge ? I

forget. St. Girolamo, was it? One has seen old engravings, the

saint at his desk perusing his parchment scroll, the partridge on the

floor. Partridges, pheasants and quail will become very tame. I

know a lady living in London who had, alas “ had,” a Douglas quail

which is closely related to the better-known Californian quail, but

the Douglas has an upright crest of rufous feathers, which have not

bare shafts and do not curl over forwards as in the Californian.

And this particular Douglas quail was so much a member of the

family that he would be brought in by the butler, just as a child is

sent for and is carried down by its nurse to the drawing room or



