34 NATURALISTS CABINET. 



Incapable of migration Singular fact. 



that partridges have no powers of migration. A 

 covey of sixteen partridges being routed by some 

 men at plough, directed their flight across the 

 cliff to the sea, over which they continued their 

 course about three hundred yards. Either inti- 

 midated or otherwise affected by that element, 

 the whole were then observed to drop into the 

 water. Twelve of them were soon afterwards 

 floated to shore by the tide; where they were 

 picked up by a boy, who carried them to East- 

 bourne and sold them. 



Willoughby, as a proof of the docility of par- 

 tridges, informs us_, that a certain Sussex man 

 had, by his industry, made a covey of these birds 

 so tame that he drove them before him, upon a 

 wager, out of the above mentioned county to 

 fcondon, though they were absolutely free, and 

 had their wings grown. An engraved repre- 

 sentation of this singular fact is herewith pre- 

 sented to our readers. 



In Sweden, these birds burrow beneath the 

 snow, and the whole covey crouds together under 

 shelter to guard against the intense cold. In 

 Greenland, the partridge is brown during summer, 

 but as soon as the winter sets in, it becomes 

 clothed with a thick and .warm down, and its ex- 

 terior assumes the colour of the snows. Near the 

 mouth of the river Oi in Russia, the partridges 

 are in such quantities, that the adjacent moun- 

 tains are crouded with them. These birds have 

 been seen variegated with white, and sometimes 





