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32 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 
her constant practice to cover up her eggs with dry 
leaves before she left the nest to feed. One unlucky 
day a passer-by strayed a foot or so from the path, 
and literally put his foot into the nest, breaking a 
‘’ pertion of the eggs. “Such a mishap is generally fatal 
to the success of the brood, just as the onset of a 
dog, which perhaps snatches the tail from the hen, is 
the inevitable precursor of failure. Even under such 
disastrous circumstances we have known the cock 
partridge to take his place upon the nest, after having 
failed to persuade his partner to resume the per- 
formance of her proper duties ; but her nerves are 
generally unequal to the task, and she postpones her 
energies for a few weeks, until another nest is chosen 
and duly filled with eggs. The devotion which 
partridges frequently manifest to their eggs is quite a 
touching feature of their life history. Take, for 
example, the conduct of a hen partridge which was 
found brooding her eggs upon a hedgeside in Perth- 
shire. She was discovered: by some young school 
children, one of whom lifted the old bird off her 
nest, and carried her home in her apron to her 
mother’s door, exhibiting the captive in childish glee, 
unconscious of the enormity of her offence. The 
bird had then been carried a distance of about a 
mile from her nest, and was at once borne back in 
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