^ail and Partridge 129 



care of the eggs, and the young broods. As 

 soon as the eggs were laid, the cocks with- 

 drew, generally keeping alone, but sometimes 

 companying in twos or threes. All through 

 the pleasant fall weather, as became bachelors 

 of consequence, they fed high, on grapes, and 

 wild peas, and hazel nuts, and the smaller 

 acorns. Though the first snow did not 

 gather them into flocks, with their deserted 

 families, it did make them feed and range in 

 fairly close neighborhood. 



Thus they were not a bit like his weather- 

 wise friends, the partridges, who are easily 

 the most clannish of all the fowls of the air. 

 Joe made a point of knowing where every 

 partridge nest was — also of seeing that it 

 came to no harm. If it happened to be in a 

 wheat field, the binder drove around, not over 

 it, even though going around left a yard of 

 standing grain. A sitting partridge would 

 stick to her eggs, and let the machine cut her 

 head ofF. One merely laying would fly off 

 and of course desert the nest left bare to the 

 broiling sun. The harvest hands made that 

 their excuse for plundering the nests. A 

 partridge egg is one of the daintiest morsels 

 in the world. It is pure white, of a very 

 sharp oval, with a strong shell, but so delicate 

 the light shines faintly through as the eggs 

 lie huddled in the nest. When the nest is 



