336 VERTEBRATE FAUNA OF LAKELAND 



RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE. 



Caccabis rufa (L.). 



The moist climate of the Lake district can hardly be con- 

 sidered favourable to the naturalisation of a species which 

 thrives best in dry and sandy situations, and has probably 

 exercised an adverse influence upon the various attempts which 

 have been made to introduce this bird into Lakeland. Dr. 

 Parker informs me that Red-legged Partridges have lately (May 

 1890) been introduced to the Gosforth district, and are at 

 present thriving well in that part of Cumberland. It is to be 

 hoped that the results of this experiment may be more fortunate 

 than accrued to the similar attempt made in 1862 by the late 

 Mr. Jackson Gilbanks, whose stock was shot out by poachers 

 and neighbouring sportsmen the same session ; or to the birds 

 turned down at Thornthwaite near Keswick, about the year 

 1878, by Mr. Short. The earliest known occurrence of this 

 bird in Lakeland is identical with a bird observed feeding with 

 the poultry in a farm-yard at Dykesfield, Burgh, which was shot 

 by Mr. Nixon prior to March 18, 1848, when it was examined 

 by T. C. Heysham. Its appearance points to an introduction of 

 the species either in Cumberland or the south of Scotland. 

 There can be no doubt that other isolated attempts have been 

 made to introduce this bird as a colonist, but country gentlemen 

 rarely take the trouble to record such incidents in print. About 

 the year 1865 Dr. Gough informed Mr. A. G. More that the 

 Red-legged Partridge had ' bred regularly of late years in West- 

 morland.' I have failed to trace the species as now breeding in 

 Westmorland; nevertheless, several of these birds were shot 

 near Kirkby-Stephen in the season of 1887. 



PARTRIDGE. 



Perdix cinerea, Lath. 



Although gifts of Partridges, sometimes of live birds, were 

 occasionally offered to the lord of Naworth, the species does not 

 occur in his poultry bills with the frequency that we should 

 expect to find, had the numbers of this game bird approximated 



