62 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE PARTRIDGE 
the same is true of other orders. Mr. J. Brodie Innes 
furnished the following note, which bears upon the 
point under consideration, to the ‘ Zoologist’ :— 
‘Some years ago, among a brood of common 
brown partridges on my home-farm, there was one 
white one. The little bird interested not only me, 
but my grieve and his children, who took so much 
interest in it that if they saw the covey go off the 
farm they used to drive them back; and lest it 
should be killed or lost, I forbade shooting on the 
farm. At the proper season it paired with a brown 
bird, and the result was five white and several brown 
birds. They were so purely white as to be easily 
distinguished on the ground from white pigeons by 
their purity. Again I took care of them. One was 
killed by a poacher and found its way to a bird- 
stuffer in Elgin, from whom it was taken by Captain 
Dunbar Brander, of Seapark, on whose manors it had 
been poached. I believe he has it still. The other 
fowl survived the season and paired—two white ones 
together, and the other two with brown ones. I 
hoped. for a good number the next season, but they 
all disappeared and there have been none since. I 
should not have been surprised if they had all gone 
at once in a covey, for they might have been netted 
in spite of my keepers ; but they were in pairs, and 
