60 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 
of the vent.’ The description just given was taken 
from a male specimen. Mr. Hancock adds that ‘the 
dark rich brown colour of these birds suggests at first 
sight the opinion that they may be hybrids between 
the partridge and red grouse, but on a more careful 
examination there is nothing to confirm this.’ 
Pale buff varieties of the partridge are not very 
infrequently met with in collections. Birds in which 
the horse-shoe is pale brown and the body plumage a 
very pale bluish or stone grey are shot from time to 
time in England ; they have been met with likewise 
in Ireland. In all the ‘blue’ partridges that we have 
personally seen, the chestnut colour of the forehead 
and throat had been replaced by cream colour. 
Pure white and pied partridges have been met 
with in Great Britain on many occasions. Some of 
the number have been real albinos, in which the 
characters of a blanched white dress and red irides 
occurred together. By far the larger proportion of 
white birds are examples of Zeucotism, if we may be 
allowed to employ the phrase long ago brought into 
use by the late Mr. Edward Blyth to explain the 
conjunction of pure white plumage and irides of 
the normal colour. Mr. A. Hasted recorded, in the 
‘Zoologist’ of 1892, the occurrence of two white 
partridges in a single covey. ‘On the wing they both 
