AND NEIGSBOURHOOD. 307 



bushes and trees, especially in wet weather, and may 

 often be seen on stone walls. As a rule these birds 

 thrive best upon light sandy soils, but with us in 

 Northamptonshire they seem to vary their haunts 

 Avithout regard to the character of the ground or the 

 crops growing thereon, only seeming to prefer an 

 old weedy fallow field to any other locality. The 

 flesh of the Red-leg is white and much drier than 

 that of the Grey Partridge, but in our opinion is by 

 no means to be despised. A belief existed in the 

 eastern counties that the " Frenchman " interferes 

 with and drives away the indigenous species, and on 

 this account, in many places, attempts were made to 

 exterminate the foreigners by destroying their eggs 

 and kilUng the bu'ds at all seasons, but our experience 

 goes to prove that this is a mistake, and in the only 

 actual encounter ever witnessed by us between old 

 males of the two species, the Grey bird had decidedly 

 the best of it. The present species belongs to a 

 division of the Partridge family to which naturalists 

 have given the appellation of Caccahis, of which 

 division three other species are found in Europe ; 

 these diff'er but slightly in coloration, habits, or cry, 

 which is a sort of chuckling crow of five or six notes 

 frequently repeated and very sonorous. The present 

 species is the Partridge of Spain, in which country it 

 still abounds in spite of the incessant warfare waged 

 against it by man and numberless four-footed and 

 feathered enemies at all seasons. Many Spaniards of 

 high and low degree are excellent shots and most 

 indefatigable w^alkers, but the prevailing method of 

 Partridge-shooting is by means of a caged bird, who 

 calls up, or ought to call up, the wild birds of his 

 species to their destruction by the gun of Don 



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