n8 The Natural History of British Game Birds 
disposition of modern farming seems to tend towards mathematical ugliness and to strip 
Nature of all her beauty. Bare billiard-table fields and hedgerows cropped like convicts 
seem to have taken the place of varied open lands, rugged " gills," and broad rose- 
embowered fences. The beauty of England is disappearing, and with it go all the 
charming wild things that tend to make the country life the only life worth living. It 
is sad to see the best of the Partridge grounds in Kent, Surrey, Sussex, and the 
Midlands ruined, for the sake of the few pounds saved for additional agriculture. 
Proper conditions can only exist when the land is shot over by the owner of the soil ; 
for he can attend to the wants of his birds, and will create or leave some of the waste 
places of Nature that are essential to the welfare of the little brown bird. 
The nest is usually a cavity in the soil, scraped by the female to no great depth, 
and lined with a few leaves and stems of withered grass. In this she lays from ten to 
twenty olive - coloured eggs. 1 Incubation commences about May 25th and lasts for 
twenty-one days. In Sussex we generally see the first brood about June 15th, whilst 
in the eastern counties the time of hatching is about a week later. Like the pheasant, 
the Partridge will often make her nest close to a roadside where men and dogs are 
constantly passing, and often pays the penalty of her childlike confidence at the hands 
of marauding boys. Most of such nests would be destroyed were it not for the fact 
that she sits very close and gives forth no scent whilst she is on the nest. This 
absence of scent of "sitting" gallinaceous birds is very remarkable, and has not been 
properly explained ; for it seems that the bird has some power to prevent the natural 
odour from escaping in moments of danger. We have all had the experience of 
"winging" a grouse or Partridge which a well-trained dog has immediately followed 
with zest and then as suddenly been at fault, although escape on the part of the bird 
seemed impossible. The wounded one has not been found, however, owing to the fact 
that it has crept into some cranny or passed right away without leaving further scent. 
I think it is quite possible that when the injured or sitting bird has apprehended 
the danger, it holds the feathers very tightly and can prevent the smell of the skin and 
body from escaping. I call to memory an instance of the trustfulness or stupidity or 
cunning, whichever the reader may regard it, of Partridges nesting in dangerous places, 
and of their power of retaining their scent whilst sitting. About five years ago I was 
walking with my wife and a favourite spaniel possessing an exceptional nose, in the 
suburbs of Horsham. The spot was at the angle of three roads where houses end and 
the railway to London passes by. It is a favourite walk of the people of the town, 
and I should say that not less than fifty dogs daily pass with their owners and hunt 
the hedgerow. At the top of the hedge I noticed a chaffinch's nest, and saw the bird 
fly out. Wondering how such a nest had escaped the vigilant eyes of the Grammar 
School boys only a few hundred yards away, I climbed the bank to see if the eggs had 
been taken, and was in the act of putting my hand in the nest when my foot rested 
on the back of a Partridge that was sitting underneath. She escaped with much flurry, 
and I was engaged in placing some leaves upon the nest, so that it could not be seen 
from the road, when my dog almost grabbed another Partridge, this time a red-legged 
one, that had also been seated on its nest not three yards away. Curious to relate, the 
1 Abnormal eggs are often white, and occasionally pale blue. 
