THE DOMINANT BREED. 
47 
here without the aid of man, several having been found 
on the coasts in a nearly exhausted state, evidently from 
the effects of a long flight. It is not so entirely a ground 
bird as the grey kind, sometimes roosting, and even resting 
in trees ; they seem, too, rather to prefer a hilly and heathy 
district to the cultivated bottom land. They are strong on 
the wing, wild, and difficult to shoot, ^ and,' as Yarrell 
says, ' foot away before a pointer like an old cock grouse.' 
Their food is much the same as that of the common Par- 
tridge, like which they are monogamous, but are inclined 
to flock, or form considerable parties of several coveys. 
Their eggs, unlike those of the common species, which are 
of an uniform olive colour, are spotted and speckled with 
reddish-broAvn, on a ground of rufus-drab ; they are from 
fifteen to eighteen in number, and are generally found in 
some hollow or depression of the ground, lined with dry 
leaves or grass. 
Many more anecdotes might be related, and interesting 
particulars given, illustrative of the character and habits of 
the common grey species, the bird which is so plentiful in 
Norfolk and some other English counties, that as many as 
eighty-seven and a-half brace have fallen in one day before 
a single shooter, thirty-four and a-half brace having been 
shot in a six-and-twenty acre piece of Swedish turnips. 
But we must bring our article to a close, just asking a 
question, by the way, before doing so. Why is it that a 
covey of Irish partridges will generally spring without 
uttering a call, while a Scotch covey shriek with all theia- 
might when sprung? This is stated on the authority of 
Thompson, and reverses the known characteristics of the 
tinfeathered bipeds of the two countries — the demonstrative, 
noisy Irishman, and the silent, cautious Scotchman. 
The following anecdote we quote as likely to be new to 
our readers: it is taken from a very recent number of 
* Chambers's Journal,' and is, if true^ an extraordinary in- 
stance of tenacity of life in the Partridge. ^ This bird — an 
old cock, I warrant him — was knocked over in the usual 
way, " in stubble and turnips." He was picked up while 
yet struggling, and his head severely knocked on the stock 
of a gun by one of the party. He was then himg by the 
