THE RED-l.JKGC^ED PARTRIDGE 123 



words by Polwhele in his History of Cornwall. It 

 would seem that either a very few were turned out, 

 which soon got dispersed and killed, or else that 

 unfavourable circumstances prevented their increas- 

 ing, and they gradually died off. Otherwise one 

 would have expected that from this fresh centre of 

 dispersal at St Austell, both Cornwall and Devon 

 might have been stocked, and perhaps some 

 stragglers might even have found their way into 

 Somersetshire. 



When Mr Cecil Smith, in 1869, published his 

 Birds of Somersetshire, he was unable to include the 

 Red-legged Partridge in his list. Since that date, 

 however, stragglers have occasionally been met with 

 in that county. -In September 1879, Mr C. Fry 

 Edwards, of The Grove, Wrington, shot a brace on 

 the manor of Compton Bishop, where the keeper 

 informed him that others fed in the coverts with 

 the Pheasants. It does not appear that any had 

 been turned out in the neighbourhood, and these 

 birds, therefore, must have wandered a considerable 

 distance. I subsequently received from Mr Cecil 

 Smith the following note on the occurrence of this 

 bird in Somersetshire : — 



"On December 14, 1882, I saw at one of the 

 poulterer's shops in Taunton a Red-legged Partridge^ 

 which had been shot that morning at Kingston, 

 about three mileS off, where another was seen at the 

 same time, but not obtained. I was also informed 

 that a small covey of four or five had been seen at 

 Nynehead, near Wellington, but I do not know 

 that any of them were shot. The occurrence of 



