VIRGINIAN PARTRIDGE. 85 



great agitation, like our common hen. I retired much gratified, and observed the young 

 ones, nine in number, collect again under the wings of their mother. The assiduity 

 of this excellent parent -was truly exemplary, and her attention unremitting, and she 

 Feared them every one with very little trouble. What is very singular, there were 

 eight cocks and but one hen, all of wliom were reared till they moulted and got their 

 adult plumage ; when, from some cause which I could never ascertain, they began to droop 

 one after another, and before Christmas all the young birds died. Though I examined 

 the stomachs and gizzards of most of them, yet I never could find out the cause of their 

 deaths; but I have little doubt of its being some deleterious substance picked up in the 

 place where I separated them from the old ones, soon after they became full fledged, as 

 the old ones escaped this mortality, and the cock bird is now living, (October, 1830.) 



The other pair never bred, but it was easily accounted for, as the hen was unwell 

 from the first time I turned them down, and she lingered on to October, and then died. 

 Previously to and during the time the hen was sitting, the cock serenaded her with his 

 harsh and singular notes, some of them very similar to the mewing of a cat. He had 

 also a peculiarity of constantly running round in a circle, till the ground whereon he 

 performed his evolutions was worn as bare as a road, and the turf trodden down much 

 in the same way as it is by the Ruff in the fens, during the season of incubation. 

 Xothing could be more cordial and harmonious than this happy family. When the shaded 

 of evening approached, they crowded together in a circle on the ground, and prepared 

 for the slumbers of the night by placing their tails all together, with their pretty mottled 

 chins facing to the front in a watchful round-robin. When food was thrown in to them, 

 which consisted chiefly of spirted barley and wheat, and occasionally bread, the male bird 

 would peck at the grain, but not eat any himself until he had called his family around 

 him first to partake of the food; which he did with many soft blandishments, and with 

 much strutting, and spreading of the wings and tail. 



I was much disappointed at the loss of this interesting family, and I waited with some 

 impatience for the result of another season. The season at length arrived; they built 

 their nest again as usual ; the hen laid about sixteen eggs ; when, to my great mortification, 

 just as she had begun to sit, I found her dead one morning, and cannot otherwise account 

 for the circumstance than by supposing that something must have frightened her in the night, 

 and caused her to fly up with violence against the wires, which proved fatal to her. Thus 

 ended my hopes of domesticating this elegant little bird, as I have never been able to procure 

 another female, though I have applied in London for that purpose. The guard of a coach 

 informed me that he had the care of a basket of these birds by his coach; that they all, 

 by some accident, got out and flew away; and that in the part of country where they 

 made their escape, (which I have now forgotten,) they had bred and increased exceedingly. 

 I have also heard of their doing well in some parts of the south of this kingdom. I 



