QUAIL, OR PARTRIDGE. 229 



fluttering along, and beating the ground with her wings, as if 

 sorely wounded ; using every artifice she is master of to entice 

 the passenger in pursuit of herself, uttering at the same time 

 certain peculiar notes of alarm, well understood by the young, 

 who dive separately amongst the grass, and secrete themselves 

 till the danger is over ; and the parent, having decoyed the 

 pursuer to a safe distance, returns by a circuitous route to 

 collect and lead them off. This well-known manoeuvre, which 

 nine times in ten is successful, is honourable to the feelings 

 and judgment of the bird, but a severe satire on man. The 

 affectionate mother, as if sensible of the avaricious cruelty of 

 his nature, tempts him with a larger prize, to save her more 

 helpless offspring ; and pays him, as avarice and cruelty ought 

 always to be paid, with mortification and disappointment. 



The eggs of the quail have been frequently placed under the 

 domestic hen, and hatched and reared with equal success as 

 her own ; though, generally speaking, the young partridges, 

 being more restless and vagrant, often lose themselves, and 

 disappear. The hen ought to be a particular good nurse, not 

 at all disposed to ramble, in which case they are very easily 

 raised. Those that survive acquire all the familiarity of 

 common chickens ; and there is little doubt that, if proper 

 measures were taken, and persevered in for a few years, they 

 might be completely domesticated. They have been often 

 kept during the first season, and through the whole of the 

 winter, but have uniformly deserted in the spring. Two young 

 partridges that were brought up by a hen, when abandoned 

 by her, associated with the cows, which they regularly followed 

 to the fields, returned with them when they came home in the 

 evening, stood by them while they were milked, and again 

 accompanied them to the pasture. These remained during 

 the winter, lodging in the stable, but as soon as spring came, 

 they disappeared. Of this fact I was informed by a very 

 respectable lady, by whom they were particularly observed. 



It has been frequently asserted to me, that the quails lay 

 occasionally in each other's nests. Though I have never 



