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PABTBIDGE. 



COMMON PARTRIDGE. GRAY PARTRIDGE. 



Perdix cinerea, .... Latham. 



Tetrao Perdix, ..... Linxjetts. 

 Perdrix grise, .... Temieqjck. 



Perdix — A Partridge. Cinerea — Ash -coloured, or gray. 



Perhaps scarcely any other Game Bird is better known in this country, or is on the 

 whole more deserving of the esteem in which it is held, than the Partridge. Selecting, 

 as it does by choice, the most highly cultivated parts of the country for its resort, it 

 offers to the sportsman, almost at his own door, most agreeable shooting, without the 

 extreme labour and separation from his family and friends which is the penalty paid 

 by the Grouse shooter for his more exciting pleasures. It is an interesting fact in the 

 history of this bird, that while the extension of cultivation has gradually diminished the 

 numbers of some birds, and has entirely banished others from districts where formerly 

 they were in abundance, the direct contrary effect has resulted in the case of the Partridge, 

 which we find to increase most abundantly in those localities where the modern system 

 of farming is carried to its greatest extent. Being an indigenous inhabitant of these 

 Islands, the Partridge only requires fair play to increase and multiply to almost any 

 desired extent. 



In speaking of the distribution of this bird over the country, instead of specifying 

 the various places where it is found, we shall only state that it occurs in more or less 

 abundance wherever moderate protection is afforded to it, except on those wild and rude 

 moors and wastes which we have described as the peculiar haunts of the Grouse; and 

 yet we have the authority of Mr. St. John for the fact, that in Sutherland he has 

 occasionally met with it in situations usually resorted to by Moor Game alone. Confirmatory 

 of this, and also as adding somewhat to our knowledge of the economy of the bird, we 

 quote the following from a letter to Mr. W. Thompson from Mr. George Jackson, keeper 

 to Lord Bantry at Glengariff:— "In this very mountainous district (the country between 

 Bantry Bay and the Bay of Kenmare, nearly the whole of which is the property of 



