40 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 
That pheasants and partridges often lay together 
is known to most sportsmen ; sometimes the pheasant 
hatches out the entire sitting, but this is rare. We 
believe that in the great majority of those cases in 
which a pheasant and partridge have laid together, it 
is the smaller bird that discharges the maternal duties, 
though not invariably so. The female partridge is, 
at any rate, the wiser mother, and understands the 
care of delicate chicks far better than her rival. It 
does sometimes happen that a domestic fowl which has 
straggled from a farm-yard joins company with a hen 
partridge, or, rather, endeavours to oust the wild bird 
from her claims. Such an arrangement is little in 
harmony with the jealous temperament of the plucky 
little partridge, which is pretty certain to evict the 
newcomer from her home before her domestic affairs 
have settled down. If the hen has laid several eggs 
before the birds come to blows, she generally indulges 
in a free scuffle to maintain her rights. On the other 
hand, if only one or two eggs have been laid, the hen 
is less determined in her intrusion, and deseris her 
post more readily. The hen partridge, left to her own 
devices, willingly hatches the eggs of the usurper, and 
cares for the young chickens as tenderly as for her 
own proper offspring, rearing the bantlings in the 
fields together with her own young. 
