BIRDS OF DUMFRIESSHIRE 341 
THE PARTRIDGE. Perdix cinerea, La^thsLxa. 
Local names — Paitritch ; Paitrick. 
" The Partridge, too, and her light-footed brood. 
As yet half fledged, now haunt the corn field skirts. 
Or on new-weeded turnip fields are spied. 
Running in lengthened file between the drills." 
James Gbahame. " British Georgics " (August). 
A common resident in the arable district. 
In both the Statistical Accounts of Scotland we find 
references to the abundance of the Partridge in many 
parishes ; and in 1812 Dr. Smger writes : " Partridges are 
numerous m most parts of this county."* In 1826 they 
fetched twelve to fifteen pence a pair, as compared with the 
tour to SIX shillings demanded for a brace of Grouse or Black- 
game.f 
Nowhere in the county is this species now more plentiful 
!Qn« Eskdale, and Lord Henry Scott writes me in 
1908 : We have frequently got over 100 brace of Part- 
?3f^> at Langholm in a day ; over 150 brace one day in 
1887. Elsewhere in the lowland districts it is questionable 
It they are as plentiful as they were, and in the upper districts 
the diminution of cropping has caused an exodus, or at any 
rate a disappearance, of what was once a familiar bird half a 
century ago. 
Mr Abel Chapman writes : " The true fell-partridge (by 
which IS meant those that have seldom or never seen corn 
tor generations) differ in plumage from their relatives of the 
stubble in having the chestnut-red colours on head, scapulars 
and flank-feathers distinctly paler and less vivid. The 
whole colour-plan has, moreover, a pale ashen-grey cast 
* Gen. View of Agriculture in Dumfries, p. 451. 
t Dumfries Courier, September 2Cth, 1826. 
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