$16 GALLINA PERDIX. Common 
male, engaged in battle with a carrion-crow; so successful 
and so absorbed were they in the issue of the contest, that 
they actually held the crow, till it was seized, and taken from 
them by the spectator of the scene. Upon search, the young 
birds (very lately hatched) were found concealed amongst 
the grass. It would appear, therefore, that the crow, a mor- 
tal enemy to all kinds of young game, in attempting to carry 
off one of these, had been attacked by the parent birds, and 
with the above singular success. 
By a careful attention to diet, partridges may be easily 
reared in confinement, and become very tame *, but they 
have never been known to breed in this state. In some parts 
of England great numbers are annually hatched under domes- 
tic fowls, and brought up by hand; which are afterwards set 
at liberty, to increase the stock upon preserved grounds. In 
the above process the gapes has been found very fatal, but 
since the discovery of a specific +- for this distemper, the loss 
from such a cause may be easily prevented. 
The partridge is found to vary considerably in size, ac- 
cording to situation, and the different nutritive qualities of 
food; thus, the largest are met with in districts where an 
abundance of grain prevails, whilst, upon the precincts of 
moors, where but an inconsiderable portion of arable land is 
offered to them, they are much inferior in size, although per- 
haps by no means evincing a similar inferiority in point of 
flavour. The feeding time of these birds (as of all the other 
members of the Gallinaceous order, in a wild state) occupies 
two or three hours after sunrise, and again before sunset. 
During the middle of the day, they retire to bushes, or bask 
in the sun on the dry banks of hedges, and are busily en- 
gaged in dusting, and afterwards in preening their feathers. 
They roost upon the ground, generally about the middle of 
a field, chusing a part very scanty in herbage, or other cover 
* See Monrtacu’s Supplement to Ornith. Dict. Article Partridge. 
t 
‘++ See preceding account of ths Pheasant. 
