The Common Partridge 1 1 7 
endeavouring to strike the other with bill, feet, and wings. The top of the head is 
usually the object aimed at, and here alone can any injury be inflicted. The combats 
sometimes last for several minutes, when one or other gives way and retreats at full 
speed, pursued for a short distance by the victor, who then retires to the side of the 
female and recommences his call. Sometimes the males simply chase one another, and 
then stand, fence and box, as it were, with their bills. As is the case generally with all 
game birds, the female runs round and round the combatants in a great state of excite- 
ment, uttering a peevish note and flapping the wings, whilst sharply raising and 
depressing the body. The tournament ground may be frequented for some days when 
spring follows a normal course with increasing warmth. The individual pairs then 
gradually move away to select a certain " beat " where a suitable nesting site may be 
found, but if severe conditions again prevail the pairs may be drawn together again 
and coveys formed for a few days as late as early March, when fresh battles and 
tournamenting recommence. Once paired for good in March, Partridges are insepar- 
able, and not subject to chronic disturbance by storms and wandering cocks as grouse 
are. Sometimes a preponderance of males may occur, but as a rule the sexes seem 
equally divided. 
There is little doubt that the hens often fight for their mates as fiercely as the males, 
and both sexes of a pair have frequently been seen to attack and drive off a rival pair 
that have invaded certain spots chosen by the first comers. J. B. Waldy, writing from 
Cranleigh to the Field, July 24, 1909, has described the warfare of female rivals : — 
" A notice in your issue of the 10th inst. of Mr. Dewar's article in the Avicultural Magazine, 
in which he describes how the hen paradise flycatchers ' mock Darwin by sometimes fighting 
over a cock,' prompts me to record a similar action in the case of English partridges. A friend 
of mine who feeds the wild birds had as regular visitors last year a pair of partridges, the hen 
being easily recognised, as she had lost one foot. At the usual time they brought off a brood, 
but were not very lucky with the young ones, which were gradually reduced in number until 
only one was left. This with' the old pair regularly visited the garden, where they were fed 
throughout the winter until the pairing time came, when the young one, which proved to be a 
hen, fought a series of battles with her mother, eventually drove her away and mated with the 
old cock, to the great disgust of their entertainer, who took a special interest in the old hen as 
being a marked bird. It all came right in the end, however, for after a week or two, when she 
had been given up as lost, the old hen came back with a new mate, with whose help she vanquished 
and drove away the other pair from the garden and field, where she has remained undisturbed 
ever since." 
The female begins to seek out her nesting-place soon after the pairing season in 
March, and chooses spots that are retired and rough with vegetation. They are very 
fond of heather, coarse grass, fern banks, rushes, isolated thickets of grass and brambles 
or short gorse, but seldom go far from the open spaces they frequent. Where rough 
ground is not to be found they nest in wide hedgerows, open clover and hay fields, and 
are fond of the smaller thickets of blackthorn so common about the roadsides and 
country paths in Surrey and Sussex. It is only too obvious that the destruction of all 
wild places on an estate means the death of Partridges; for if they cannot get such 
retreats in which to nest, as well as protection during heavy rains, they are forced 
into the open fields, where the mowing-machine is a car of Juggernaut. Nowadays the 
