﻿8 Birds 



the eastern counties. In Scotland it is local, but is common 

 generally in the lowlands ; while in Ireland it is not so plentiful 

 as formerly. To the agriculturist the Partridge is a decidedly 

 beneficial bird, owing to the large number of insects of various 

 kinds which form a considerable portion of its food. It also feeds 

 on small snails, slugs, noxious weeds, green herbage, and grain left 

 on stubble-lands. This bird often pairs in February, but it is not 

 until May that eggs are usually laid. The nest is a slight hollow 

 on the ground, lined with dry grasses, roots, etc., under the shelter 

 of coarse vegetation, hedgerows, or bushes. The eggs number from 

 ten to fifteen, and sometimes as many as twenty, their colour 

 being uniformly pale olive-brown. 



It is generally believed that the chief distinguishing character 

 of' the sexes is the relative size of the horse-shoe mark on the 

 breast, and that the male has it largely developed, while the female 

 has a much smaller horse-shoe composed of a few blotches of 

 dark chestnut feathers, or sometimes it is altogether absent. As 

 first pointed out by Mr. W. E. Ogilvie- Grant in The Field, these 

 supposed sexual characters are not to be relied upon, as the 

 greater number of young females have a well-developed horse-shoe 

 mark, which in some cases is quite as large as in adult males, 

 although in Norfolk and Suffolk young females, as a rule, 

 have only ill-defined horse-shoe markings, which are generally 

 represented by a few dark chestnut spots on the breast, while in 

 some birds the chestnut markings are wholly missing. 



The unfailing characters whereby the sexes may readily be 

 distinguished are as follows — adult male, the wing-coverts and 

 scapulars are blotched with chestnut, and only the shaft-stripes are 

 buff. The adult female has the wing-coverts and scapulars mostly 

 black, with buff crossbars widely separated, in addition to the buff 

 shaft-stripe down each feather. In adult birds the first flight-, or 

 primary, feather is rounded at the tip, and the legs and feet are 

 horn -grey. 



Young birds of the first year have the first flight-feather 

 pointed at the tip, and the legs and feet are yellowish-brown, 

 which colour remains until winter, when they assume the greyish 

 tint of the adult birds, but the pointed flight-feather is retained 

 until the following autumn moult. 



