135 Partridges. 



easy-going bird, and one that is little concerned when 

 bustled about, provided always that the bustling be not 

 overdone. 



It is no difficult task to specify the localities suitable to 

 partridge-preserving; it would be far less easy to name 

 any portion of our country where one might not find it 

 possible to raise a covey of birds. If it be given a fair 

 chance and afforded some inducement to establish itself, 

 the partridge is quite capable of doing so. It needs little 

 help, and is far less dependent on the protection of man 

 than the pheasant or the grouse. Any locality where 

 there is a fair sprinkling of arable land, and where the 

 ground is not, although wholly pasture, of a partially 

 uneven and broken character, will serve a low bit of 

 brake here, and a few rods of common there, alternating 

 with close-cropped hedges to form the divisions. But 

 where it is painfully evident that the land is used for 

 grazing purposes only, by its stiff walled hedgerows and 

 monotony of meadows, then the partridge coveys may be 

 few and far between. Upon the high bleak moors, too, 

 it finds a habitat agreeable to its taste, and in Wales, 

 Scotland, and even the wild islands on its northernmost 

 coast. On the dreary, inhospitable waste of Dartmoor it 

 is found, thriving, yet solitary, far from the cultivated 

 fields on its outskirts. Thus, it lends itself under all 

 favourable conditions to the desires of the game-preserver, 

 and no great expense or trouble is needed upon his part 

 to ensure a fair supply of these birds. 



The habits of the partridge are very interesting. In 

 the early spring it frequents the fallows and the pasture- 

 fields, rarely quitting them, except for the low copse or 

 spinney to sun and dust itself, or to shelter in during 

 severe weather. In the first week of February the mating 

 season commences, and by the middle of the month pairing 



