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ORD. V. GENUS III. PARTRIDGE. 



Bill, convex, flrong, and fhort. 



Nostrils, covered above with a callous prominent rim. 



Legs, naked : three toes before, one behind, except in a few foreign fpecies, in which 

 the hind toe is wanting. 

 Tail, fhort. 



SPECIES I. COMMON PARTRIDGE. 

 PI. ,37. 



Tetrao Perdrix. Lin. Syjl. I. p. 376. 

 La Perdrix grife. Brif. Orn. I. p. 319. 



This bird is about thirteen inches in length, and twenty in breadth ; the male weighs 

 near fifteen ounces, the female about thirteen. The bill is brown: the eyes hazel : the 

 crown of the head is brown, fpotted with reddifh white: the chin, cheeks, and forehead 

 are tawny : about the eyes are red warty excrefcences, and the old birds have a naked fkin 

 above and behind the eye : the neck and breaft are prettily marked with narrow undulated 

 lines of am colour and black ; and in the hind part of the neck is a ftrong mixture of ruft 

 colour : on the breaft is a broad mark of a ruddy colour in form of a horfe-fhoe ; and on 

 each fide a few dafhes of the fame colour : each feather on the back is finely marked with 

 feveral femicircular lines of reddifh brown and black : the fcapulars have a narrow white 

 line along their fhafts, and black and afh coloured undulated lines on the webs, the fides 

 of which are marked with a large fpot of ruft colour : the greater quill feathers are dufky, 

 fpotted on each web with pale red : the tail has eighteen feathers ; the fix outmoft on 

 each fide of a bright ruft colour tipped with white, the others croffed with irregular lines 

 of pale reddifh brown and black : the legs are of a greenifh colour in the young birds, 

 which grows white as they become older, and afterwards brown ; they have a blunt fpur, 

 or rather knob, at the back part. 



The female is lefs bright in colour : the horfe-fhoe, unlefs in old birds, not perceivable : 

 and the fpur wanting. 



The partridge is common every where in the temperate parts of Europe, as well as in 

 England. It frequents corn-fields, and rich paftures, and lays on the ground, in a hol- 

 low, often in the print left by the foot of a horfe or cow. The eggs are eighteen or even 

 more in number : fee PI. XXXI. Fig. 2. 



