56 THE GAME BIEDS AND WILD FOWL 



Nidification. — The Partridge is one of the earliest birds to separate into 

 pairs, but although it often does so in February, its nest is seldom found until a 

 couple of months later. It is a monogamous species, and may even probably 

 pair for life, although the old cocks are often very pugnacious and fight freely 

 with the younger birds. The Partridge goes to nest in England about the 

 beginning of May, but in Scotland it is nearly a month later. The female makes a 

 scanty nest in a dry hedge bottom or a ditch, amongst growing corn or clover, or 

 dense herbage on rougher ground, often in places most exposed, and in some 

 instances in unlikely situations. For instance, I have known it bring off a 

 brood from the top of a bean-stack. The nest is simply a hollow, scratched out 

 in the ground and lined with a few bits of withered herbage. The eggs vary, 

 according to the age of the hen, from ten to fifteen or twenty in number, although 

 occasionally much larger clutches are found, which may be the produce of several 

 females. A nest containing thirty-three eggs is on record, twenty-three of which 

 hatched safely, and the chicks got away with their parents. The eggs are uniform 

 pale olive-brown, exactly similar to those of the Pheasant. White and pale green 

 varieties are sometimes met with. They measure on an average l'4inch in length by 

 1'] 5 inch in breadth. Although the male Partridge keeps close and constant watch 

 over his mate and nest, the female incubates the eggs, which usually take from 

 twenty-one to twenty-four days to hatch. As soon as the brood are out both 

 parents tend them, and are solicitous for their safety, and boldy defend them 

 from predaceous creatures. The female is a close sitter, and covers her eggs 

 when leaving her nest voluntarily. One brood only is reared in the year, and I 

 am of opinion that if the first clutch of eggs be destroyed no others are laid that 

 season. If the birds continue to call into June and July it is a bad omen, and a 

 sure sign that the nests have been unfortunate. 



Diagnostic characters.— Perdix, with the horse-shoe mark on the 

 belly dark chestnut, and with the wing averaging 6 inches in length ; tail with 

 eighteen feathers. Length, 12 to 13 inches. Has been known to hybridise with 

 the Eed-legged Partridge. Subject to considerable local variation (especially in 

 the young), and it is said that in some districts (notably in Yorkshire and Oxford- 

 shire), the tendency to develop a white instead of a chestnut horse-shoe on the 

 belly is increasing. Mr. Ogilvie Grant, who has made several most interesting 

 discoveries relating to the plumages of Game Birds, points out that an unfailing 

 distinction in the plumage of the sexes of the Common Partridge is to be found 

 on the lesser and median wing coverts. These in the male are sandy-brown, 

 blotched on the inner web with chestnut, and with only buff shaft streaks ; in 

 the female they are brownish-black, with conspicuous buff cross bars. (Conf . 

 Field, 21 Nov., 1891, and 9 April, 1892). 



