144 FBANCOLIN. 



cultivation." He further adds, when describing the Grey Partridge, 

 {Perdix ponticeriana,) that its flesh is dry, and scarcely eatable, 

 being a degree worse than that of the Black Partridge, or Francolin. 

 M. Malherbe, however, says that in Sicily it is " un gibier 

 exqnis," and that it is so much sought after at all seasons, that it is 

 becoming more and more rare. Colonel Irby says that in India the 

 Francolin will take refuge in trees when flushed, but rarely. 



The Francolin nests on the ground underneath some bush, where 

 it scrapes a hollow, which it fills with dried leaves and stalks, and in 

 this nest it deposits from ten to fourteen eggs, which are of a pale 

 frey yellow or white, and either uncolorous or having large 

 brownish, almost invisible spots marked upon them. 



From a paper on the nidification of European birds in ^'Nau- 

 mannia," for 1853, p. 419, by Baldamus, I translate the following 

 about the egg of the Francolin : — " Two eggs in my collection and 

 many others in the Paris collections, from Cyprus, dififer materially 

 from that figured by Thienemann, pi. 7, fig. 8. This figure has 

 the length, and almost the breadth of one figured as Perdix 

 saxatalis. Figs. 5, a, h, which Thienemann figures of the Francolin's 

 egg, is forty millemetres long, and twenty-nine millemetres broad, 

 {saxatalis being forty by thirty.) This in my opinion is too large. 

 My specimens are much more nearly the size of those of P. cinerea. 

 In the grain of the shell they also resemble the egg of P. petrosa. 

 They have a somewhat granular surface and an isabelle white ground 

 colour, and no spots." 



The following are the measurments given by Baldamus of the five 

 European Partridges, and the dimensions of their eggs: — Perdix 

 grceca, (saxatalis.) — Length of bird from thirty-two to thirty-five 

 centimetres; egg, greater diameter from forty-three to forty-five 

 millemetres, lesser from twenty-two to twenty-three millemetres. P. 

 p)etrosa, (Barbary in British lists.) — Bird, thirty-one to thirty-two 

 centimetres; egg, greater diameter thirty-nine to forty-one millemetres, 

 lesser twenty-nine to thirty-one millemetres. P. rubra, (Red-leg.) — 

 Bird, thirty to thirty-one centimetres; egg, greater diameter forty to 

 forty-one millemetres, lesser thirty to thirty millemetres and a half. 

 P. cinerea, (Grey Partridge.) — Bird, thirty centimetres; egg, greater 

 diameter thirty-three to thirty-five millemetres, lesser twenty-five to 

 twenty-six millemetres. P. francolinus. — Bird, thirty centimetres; 

 egg, greater diameter thirty-three to thirty-four millemetres, lesser 

 twenty-five to twenty-six millemetres.* 



* Ten millemetres are one centimetre, and to bring centimetres into English 

 inches, multiply by two and divide by five. 



