XV 



THE PARTRIDGES 



PARTRIDGES are distinguished from the grouse by 

 their size being smaller and by their naked legs ; 

 they are larger than the European quails and distin- 

 guished from the smaller birds in many ways. The 

 foreign quails are migratory, fly in large flocks and go 

 long distances, even crossing the Mediterranean. The 

 American partridges are none of them migratory ; 

 although they have been known to move short dis- 

 tances, usually for food or water, they are found more 

 often year after year in the same field, or at least on the 

 same farm. The European quail are smaller than the 

 partridges. There is some difference in the shape of 

 the wings, the size and strength of the bill and the 

 number of feathers in and the length of the tails. The 

 birds now listed in the check list among the par- 

 tridges, the Bob-whites, have always been partridges 

 in Virginia and the South, but in the North and West 

 they are more often spoken of as quail. 



As I recently said in writing for a magazine, we live 

 truly in an iconoclastic age when that idol of the 

 gourmand " Quail on Toast " is shattered. 



The discussion as to name, however, which begun 

 long before " Field Sports " was written, has at last 

 been settled. The Ornithological Union has made the 

 list complete of all American birds. There are no 



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