246 HANDBOOK OF BRITISH INLAND BIRDS 
often be seen uttering this noise while perched on 
some conspicuous clod. The birds generally pair 
in February or early March, but they nest later 
than the Pheasant, the eggs being laid, as a rule, 
in the first half of May. The nest is a shallow 
depression in the ground, with but little lining of 
dry leaves or grass-stems, and is placed among the 
grass or corn in a field, or in the waste herbage by 
the side of a path or road. Eight to ten eggs are 
usually laid, but sometimes more ; occasionally 
more than one bird will lay in the same nest. The 
eggs are of the same olive-brown colour as the 
Pheasant's, but much smaller. The short round 
wings of the Partridge necessitate extremely rapid 
wing-beats, and its characteristic whirring flight is 
well known to all country-dwellers. The plumage 
of this bird is too well known to need description. 
The cock birds may, as a rule, be distinguished by 
the conspicuous reddish-brown horseshoe mark 
upon the breast ; occasionally, however, this mark 
appears on young hens, who lose it after the first 
year. The food of the Partridge consists of grain, 
different sorts of green stuff, and many kinds of 
insects, as well as small snails and slugs. In very 
dry summers the young birds, which, like those of 
all this and many other ground-building families, 
can run about almost as soon as they are out of 
the egg, are often destroyed by falling down the 
