PHASIANIDxE. 267 



Partridge. Perdix cinerea. Lath. 



Resident, generally distributed throughout the county, except the wilder 

 parts of Dartmoor, and in some years is fairly plentiful. 



Owing to the improved farming, and the enclosure and ploughing up of 

 many commons and salt-marshes, during the last half-centurj', the Par- 

 tridge has largely increased in numbers in Devonshire, so much so that in 

 the Jubilee year (1SS7), which was a grand season for Partridges all over 

 England, we knew of fifty-brace bags having been obtained in North 

 Devon. In the September of that year six hundred Partridges were taken 

 off the Tawstock Court estate, close to Barnstaple — a large number for a 

 shooting in a part of the kingdom with so poor a reputation for Partridges. 

 In the Kingsbridge district, in the south of the county, as many as sixt)'- 

 five brace have been killed in a day. 



The Partridge likes the neighbourhood of the sea, and is plentiful among 

 the ferns and grasses on the cliffs on many parts of the ]^[orth Coast, and 

 here, directly the covey is flushed, it dips down over the sidling and takes 

 refuge on some inaccessible ledge. On the edges of Dartmoor we find a 

 very fine strain of Partridge ; the birds are heavier and have brighter 

 plumage, take long and bold flights, and well rejjay the fag required to 

 bring a brace or two to bag. 



\'arieties of the Partridge are rather rare. "We possessed a very pretty 

 silver-grey bird, which was shot near Torrington about 1855, 



In the collections of the Eev. W. S. Hore, at Barnstaple, Mr. Scott, of 

 Chudleigh, and in the Truro Museum, we have seen examples of a pecu- 

 liarly dark Partridge, which we regarded as melanistic varieties ; these 

 birds were slightly larger, apparently, than the ordinary bird, and darker 

 than the little dark Partridges one is familiar with on the Scotch moors. 

 Mr. Hore obtained these large and dark birds several seasons in succession 

 from Shebbear, and was disposed to consider tliem a cross between the 

 Common and the lled-legged Partridge, but there was nothing about them 

 to indicate any strain derived from the latter bird. 



In the Ileport of the British Association, Exeter Meeting, 1869 (Trans, 

 of Section, p. 117), will be found a notice, by Dr. W. 11. Scott, of supposed 

 hybrids between this species and tlie lled-legged Partridge, many of wliich 

 were obtained in the West of Devon between 1859 and 180)3. The 

 plumage of these birds dilfcred from that of ordinary individuals by being 

 of a darker and richer brown, uniformly spread over the whole body, in 

 liaving no grey markings, and in the entire absence of the horse-slioo on 

 the breast. They had also a black ])atch on each clieek extending Ijack- 

 wards, with a tendency to form a gorg(!t across the tliroat. Some had 

 white feathers on the breast. These were the birds we liave already 

 mentioned above. 



The variety _/V/'/v»r//>it-H*, Oould, has occurred on several occasions near 

 Tavistock and J'lymoutli (Zool, l8(il, j). 751 1). 



Col. ^[(jntagu mentions four pure white "oirds whicli were taken from 

 one covey at Powderham. Several white or cream-coloured specimcus 



