2G0 
THE BIRDS OF HAMPSHIRE. 
198. Perdix cinerea. Partridge. 
"... The moanings in the forest, the loud brook. 
Cries of the partridge Hke a rusty key 
Turn'd in a lock, owl-whoop and dor-hawk-whirr 
Awoke me not, but were a part of sleep . . ." 
Tennyson's " Lover's Tale''' 
Resident and universally distributed in all districts in 
the county and Isle of Wight. 
Gilbert White writes that it abounded in his day at 
Selborne,^ and in his description of Wolmer Forest says : 2 
" Partridges in vast plenty are bred in good seasons on the 
verge of this forest, into which they love to make excur- 
sions ; and in particular, in the dry summers of 1740 and 
1 74 1, and some years after, they swarmed to such a degree, 
that parties of unreasonable sportsmen killed twenty and 
sometimes thirty brace in a day." 
He mentions ^ an instance of " a sportsman, whose zeal 
for the increase of his game being greater than his humanity, 
after pairing time he always shot the cock bird of every 
couple of partridges upon his grounds, supposing that the 
rivalry of many males interrupted the breed : he used to 
say that, though he had widowed the same hen several 
times, yet he found she was still provided with a fresh 
paramour that did not take her away from her usual 
haunt." 
In the remarkable frost of January, 1776, they were so 
thinned by the weather and poachers that few remained to 
breed the following year."^ 
Letter v. to Pennant. ^ Letter vi. to Pennant. 
3 Letter xxix. to Pennant. Selborne, May 12th, 1770. 
*• Letter Ixii. to Barrington. 
