THE COMMON PARTRIDGE. 

 Perdix cinerea, Latham. 

 Plate 58. 



There is hardly a more popular bird in our islands than the Partridge, which is 

 resident and widely distributed over Great Britain, and although also found in 

 Ireland, it is said to be yearly becoming scarcer in that country. It inhabits the 

 greater part of Europe, from Scandinavia to the Mediterranean regions, and ranges 

 eastwards across Asia to the Altai Mountains. 



The nest is a slight hollow in the ground, scratched out by the parent bird, 

 scantily lined with dry grass, and contains from a dozen to twenty eggs, which are 

 usually an olive-brown, but sometimes may be bluish or nearly white in colour. 

 On examining a nest, which the young had just left, a summer or two ago, I was 

 struck with the tidy appearance of the egg-shells, each half having been neatly fitted 

 into the corresponding portion of the other, but whether this is always done I am 

 unable to say. 



When a pair of Partridges have once settled on a suitable piece of ground, I 

 have found, as far as my experience goes, that they or their successors will nest there 

 year after year, not actually on the same spot, but not far away, the most favourable 

 conditions being a light soil and an open aspect, with sheltering banks and 

 hedgerows, where they can dust and take their pleasure. 



The food consists chiefly of grasses and other herbage, grain, and insects, 

 especially ants and their pupae, on which the young are principally fed. 



The cheerful jarring notes of the male are a familiar country sound, heard most 

 often in the early morning and towards sundown in spring, but also at other times 

 of the year. 



At night the covey sleeps in the open, the birds bunched closely together, lying 

 in a circular formation, with their heads pointing outwards. 



The Partridge is monogamous, the birds pairing in February, when the males 

 fight fiercely for their chosen partners. In the female, the chestnut horse-shoe, so 

 characteristic of the other sex, is either absent or only partly developed, and Mr. 

 Ogilvie Grant has shown [Field, November 21, 1891, and April 9, 1892) that 

 another distinction is apparent, the hen bird having the lesser and median wing- 

 coverts and scapulars crossed with buff-coloured bars on a dark ground, these being 

 absent in the male. 



If a pair of live Partridges are studied at close quarters, it will be seen that the 

 male has the lines of the brow more angular than the corresponding parts of the 

 female, at least it was so in a brace I kept for some time in an aviary. 



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