56 Wild Life in a Southern County. 
At the slightest unwonted sound or movement, 
she first stretches her neck up for a hurried glance, 
then, as the labouring folk say, ‘ quats ’—i.e. crouches 
down—and in a second or two runs swiftly to cover, 
using every little hollow of the ground skilfully for 
concealment on the way, like a practised skirmisher. 
The ants’ nests, which are so attractive to partridges, 
are found in great numbers along the edge of the 
cornfields, being usually made on ground that is 
seldom disturbed. The low mounds that border the 
green track are populous with ants, whose nests are 
scattered thickly on these banks, as also beside the 
paths and waggon-tracks that traverse the fields and 
are not torn up by the plough. Any beaten track 
such as this old path, however green, is generally free 
from them on its surface: ants avoid placing their 
nests where they may be trampled upon. This may 
often be noticed in gardens: there are nests at and 
under the edge of the paths, but none where people 
walk. It is these nests in the banks and mounds 
which draw the partridges so frequently from the 
middle of the fields to the edges where they can 
be seen; they will come even to the banks of fre- 
quented roads for the eggs of which they are so 
fond. 
Now that their courting-time is over, the larks do 
not sing so continuously. Later on, when the ears of 
wheat are ripe and the reapers are sharpening their 
sickles, if you walk here, with the corn on either hand, 
