LOVE AND COURTSHIP 29 
done by a decimation of the superabundant sex. The 
widows are not likely to prove inconsolable. Fresh 
suitors soon appear to woo the favour of the discon- 
solate ones, and thus the balance of Nature becomes 
rightly adjusted. It should be understood, of course, 
that any such step as that: indicated was performed 
quite early in the season, so early as to anticipate 
any such misfortunes as those that would follow from 
the loss of one of a pair of nesting birds. The very 
earliest broods are not as a rule the most successful, 
since the weather is often less favourable to the nur- 
ture of the tiny chicks in April and the first weeks of 
May than in the usual hatching season, which is the 
latter part of June in most parts of England. 
Such a dry and genial summer as that of 1893 
naturally favours the increase of most varieties of 
winged game, and of partridges in particular, and helps 
to atone for the deficiency of a succession of rainy 
seasons. But the habits of the partridge itself have 
somewhat altered of late years. Before the introduction 
of mowing-machines partridges used to nest almost as 
much in the open fields as quail, so that the sitting 
bird was liable to be drenched by continuous rains, 
from which she was screened imperfectly by the low 
cover in which she nestled. Sometimes the bird fell 
a victim to the promptings of maternal solicitude, 
