10 MATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 
destined to increase and multiply in the vast grain- 
producing regions of that country, though its numbers 
are checked, if not decimated, by scarcity of food in 
winters of great severity. From Russia the partridge 
extends its range into Poland and Northern Germany, 
while to the south-east its presence can be traced to 
the northern frontiers of Greece. Indeed, it is the 
most plentiful of all game-birds in Bulgaria, and likewise 
in Macedonia. We have ourselves seen it in greater 
abundance in the Rhine provinces than in any other 
part of the German Empire; the most highly culti- 
vated plains naturally supply the most favourable 
breeding grounds for these birds. In France it is 
less common in the south of the country than in the 
northern and central departments. It is replaced by 
our own partridge in most parts of Spain, but holds 
its ground in the northern portion of the peninsula. 
We perfectly well remember the gratification with 
which we marked a pair of grey partridges that rose 
from a small roadside cover, as we drove one spring 
day through one of the wildest districts of fair Navarre, 
little expecting to find our old favourites in an arid 
region which seemed to present but scanty attraction 
for a species that delights to luxuriate in English 
meadows, full of lush, juicy grass and buttercups, and 
teeming with a variety of minute forms of insect life. 
