30 
Wild Birds, Useful and Injurious. 
If the Partridge were a mischievous bird, it would still be 
a general favourite. Luckily, however, the damage it does is 
not great, and ample reparation is made by the destruction of 
injurious insects. Partridges feed on corn, the seeds of grass, 
plantain, hemp-nettle, and many other weeds ; the leaves of 
such plants as winter rye, grass, clover, and buttercup ; grass- 
hoppers, flies, beetles, ants, ants’ eggs, and caterpillars ; whilst 
a chick, accidentally killed in a hayfield, contained a spider, 
a saw-fly grub, tiny weevils, cuckoo-spit insects, aphides, the 
slug-shaped chrysalis of the syrphus fly, various flies, beetles, 
and grubs, with many seeds of ribgrass. When reared by 
hand partridges become very tame, and 1 have seen such 
birds run over the body of an old retriever lying in a door- 
way. Mr. Ogilvie Grant has pointed out that the well-known 
chestnut horse-shoe on the lower breast is by no means a 
reliable indication of the sex of the birds, but that this point 
may be settled with certainty by the smaller feathers of the 
wing, which in the cock bird have a light stripe down the 
centre and no other light markings, whereas in the hen there 
are pale cross bars in addition. 
There is no bird so universally appreciated by farmers as 
the Pewit, Lapwing, or Green Plover. It does no harm 
whatever, except, perhaps, the occasional destruction of some 
useful insect. Like the magpie, a distant view of the pewit 
gives the impression of a black and white bird, but the upper 
parts are really green, glossed with purple and bronze, and the 
feathers next the tail, both above and below, are a beautiful 
fawn colour, whilst the graceful crest gives a distinctive charm 
to its appearance. The large flocks of lapwings, often composed 
of immigrants from the continent, feed both by day and night, 
and devour slugs, surface caterpillars, the caterpillars of the 
small cabbage white butterfly, leatherjackets, wire-worms, and 
earwigs ; as well as worms, beetles, and caddis-flies. On the 
sea-shore they obtain marine insects, and small shellfish. The 
late H. A. Macpherson saw lapwings catching flies on the wing, 
“ pursuing the insects in graceful undulating curves.” 
Seagulls are usually regarded as welcome visitors to the 
farm. The larger gulls destroy quantities of eggs, principally 
of sea-birds, and one of them, the Great Blackbacked Gull, 
occasionally attacks weakly ewes and lambs, but they are of 
no great importance to the farmer. Of the smaller gulls, the 
Common Gull and the Blackheaded Gull are the best known. 
The blackheaded gull has red legs and feet, and in the summer 
a black, or more correctly brown, head ; the common gull has 
greenish-yellow legs. The food of both species is probably 
similar and is of a very varied nature. A most interesting 
report on the blackheaded gull, by Mr. D. L. Thorpe and 
