50 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 
Our own experience could furnish other instances 
in which partridges have proved highly amenable to 
domestication. 
Mr. T. H. Nelson mentions two hand-reared birds 
which lived in a walled garden, following the gardener 
about during the performance of his duties, and even 
allowing strangers to approach within a yard of them. 
Originally, these birds roosted in the garden ; but, 
after having been alarmed by a cat, they acquired the 
habit of flying out to roost; returning, however, at 
daylight to receive their breakfast. 
It is not very surprising, after all, that birds reared 
under a domestic fowl should attach themselves to those 
who care for them. But even birds that have known 
the joys of freedom from the time that they chipped 
the egg-shells as tiny chicks, are susceptible to kindly 
influences if captured adult. We refer especially to 
birds that have been taken alive owing to some 
unwonted circumstance. Thus a pair which Mr. G. 
Stone saved out of a covey, which had been caught in 
a town, became very tame when turned into a walled 
garden, and soon learnt to attend an open window 
when the hour of feeding them arrived. 
Oddly enough, there are well-authenticated in- 
stances of partridges voluntarily attaching themselves 
to the neighbourhood of human beings. Thus, in 
