120 Major Maurice Portal—Chukor Partridges from Crete


her younger lot, but should he meet these he attacks at once. This

gives the following number of eggs :—


On 15th April : 10 eggs laid, 9 fertile and hatched under Bantam.


On 3rd May : 15 eggs laid (14 in nest and one in potting-shed),

all fertile.


By 23rd May : a Chukor was sitting on 15 eggs, all fertile (but 3 left

in nest), hatched about 12th June.


On 6th July : the lien found with 7 or 8 young birds a day or so

old.


If the Chukor in Crete make a habit of laying like this the breed

should not become extinct, as, at the least, this is forty-seven or forty-

eight eggs laid and of these only one was unfertile.


The birds with their parents develop quickest, and are strongest,

but it should be remembered that they have had no cold weather, and

lots of ant heaps. My birds under Bantams did badly until allowed com¬

plete freedom of range, and then the usual losses started ; a bird got

in a ditch ; a dog frightened the lot one day, and they ran and flew

in every direction, three never came back, two got trodden on, etc. I

fed on hard-boiled egg and dry chick-feed ; later small seeds from the

threshing machine, which contained very small wheat and much dirt,

but at 10s. cwt. was well worth it, and better than dry chick-feed.

I added oatmeal if they did not feed up well, and ants’ nests when I

could dig them — for the latter they will eat out of my hand.


The young are very shy if you move, and have a bad habit of running

a long way and squatting until the hen calls. Cold rain or cold wind

they dislike, unless under the lee of something. They drink freely at

night, but rarely in the day-time, and when they do drink do so for

some minutes.


The young will walk up anything like a post or log resting up against

the netting and are always trying to get out, and having accomplished

this they at once try to get back again. They develop faster than

Red-leg Partridges, and fly much earlier on in life ; the call is somewhat

like that of the Red-leg ( C. rufa), and if a mound of logs is built in the

enclosure they will soon be on the top calling, flying down into the

grass at the least disturbance and five minutes later up on the top again.


If anyone should try these birds, I would suggest an enclosure of



