Genus Perdix 
THE COMMON PARTRIDGE 
Perdix perdix (Linnsus) 
Local Names.— Petrisen (Partridge), coriar (Little hen), clugiar (Click hen) ( Welsh) ; cearc Thomain 
(Knoll hen), chearc cruthach (Horseshoe hen) [Gaelic) ; Perdrix grise {French) ; Rebhuhn [German). 
Adult Male. — General colour, except the lower parts, brown buff, more or less 
suffused with grey, the feathers cross-marked with narrow wavy lines of black ; lesser 
and median wing coverts and scapulars blotched on the inner web with chestnut ; shaft 
stripes, buff; breast, grey finely crossed with black; on the upper part of the white 
under parts is a large dark chestnut patch 1 in the form of a horseshoe. The flank 
feathers are broadly barred with chestnut. Crown of head, brown ; front of head, 
throat, and upper neck, chestnut. Total length, 12.6 in. ; wing, 6.2 in. ; tail, 3.5 in. ; 
tarsus, 1.7 in. Legs and feet, bluish grey in adults, and yellowish brown in immatures. 
Specimens of moorland Partridges from the bog areas of Scotland, Wales, and Ireland 
are very dark, often with no white in the under parts except round the breast patch. 
They are small, weighing about 12 to 15 oz. The lightest in colour and largest 
specimens come from the sandy soils of Norfolk, Hants, Suffolk, Lincolnshire, and 
Cambridgeshire, where high cultivation is maintained. Weight, 15 oz. (hill Partridge) 
to 18 oz. 
Adult Female. — Mr. Ogilvie Grant was the first to point out 2 a characteristic 
difference between the sexes. He has shown that in the female the ground colour 
of " the lesser and median wing coverts and scapulars are mostly black, with wide- 
set buff cross-bars, in addition to the longitudinally buff shaft stripe down to the 
middle of each feather." Another almost invariable difference is that in the female 
the chestnut breast feather is small or completely absent. Yet a third important 
point of difference that Mr. Grant does not mention, and one which rarely alters in 
the two sexes, is the difference of the head and neck markings. The crown of the 
male is a uniform chestnut-brown, with very small shaft stripes of the same colour but 
paler, whilst in the female the shaft stripes are pale buff and much larger ; the feathers, 
too, on the upper ends exhibit more brown-black than the males. The nape of the 
males is grey ground, with fine irregular bars of black and suffused with sandy-brown, 
which increases and is further barred with deep chestnut over the scapulars, and there 
are no half shaft stripes. In the females we rarely see any chestnut in the nape, the 
1 In certain districts the males sometimes, and females often, exhibit no sign of the horseshoe, or a very small one, 
whilst in others there is a tendency towards a black horseshoe. The most beautiful Partridges I have ever seen were some I 
shot at Ballathie in Perthshire (on sandy soil). The horseshoes of both males and females were nearly black. 
a Field, Nov. 21, 1891, and April 9, 1S92. 
