114 RECREATIONS OF A NATURALIST 



birds, written about 1667, says : "Though there be 

 here very great store of Partridges, yet the French 

 Red-legged Partridge is not to be met with." This 

 observation was probably suggested by some letter 

 of his contemporary Willughby, with whom he 

 corresponded, and who speaks of him as "my 

 honoured friend Sir Thomas Browne of Norwich, 

 a person deservedly famous for his skill in all 

 parts of learning, but especially in natural history." 

 Willughby 's own views about this bird are ex- 

 pressed in his Ornithologia, which his friend John 

 Ray translated and printed a few years after his 

 death, viz., in 1678. He says (p. 23): "We have 

 been informed that the Red-legged Partridge 

 {Perdix rufd) is found in the isles of Jersey and 

 Guernsey"; and further on (p. 167): "This kind 

 is a stranger to England ; howbeit, they say it 

 is found in the isles of Jersey and Guernsey, 

 which are subject to our king." 



From these statements it may be taken for 

 granted that, if Willughby and his friend Sir 

 Thomas Browne (the leading naturalists of their 

 day in correspondence with men of similar tastes in 

 other parts of the country) were unaware of the 

 existence here of the Red-legged Partridge, it 

 could not have been introduced at that date. On 

 the other hand, there is reason to believe that 

 within a very few years later an experiment was 

 made to establish the species in England, for Daniel, 

 in his Rural Sports (vol. iii., p. 94), says : " So far 

 back as the time of Charles II. (1660- 1685) several 

 pairs of these Red-legged Partridges were turned 



