THE COMMON PARTRIDGE, 
75 
as the partridge is generally described, instances 
have been seen where the love of offspring prevailed, 
ami a vigorous defence was successfully maintained 
against a more powerful assailant. Among the many 
instances of such defence mentioned by various 
authors, we shall notice one of the latest which 
Mr Selby has recorded in the last edition of his 
History of British Ornithology * Their parental 
instinct, indeed, is not. always confined to mere de- 
vices for engaging attention; but where there ex- 
ists a probability of success, they will fight obsti- 
nately for the preservation of their young, as appears 
from many instances already narrated hy different 
writers, and to which the following may he added, 
for the truth of which I can vouch, A person en- 
gaged in a field, not far from my residence, hud Ins 
attention arrested by some objects on live ground, 
which, upon approaching, he found to he two par- 
tridges, a male and female, engaged in battle with a 
carrion-crow ; so successful and so absorbed were 
they in the issue of the contest, that they actually 
held the crow, till it was seized, and taken from 
them hy the spectator of the scene. Upon search, 
the young birds (very lately hatched) were found con- 
cealed amongst the grass. It would appear, there- 
fore, that the crow, a mortal enemy to all kinds of 
young game, in attempting to carry off one of these, 
had been attacked hy the parent birds, and with the 
above singular success." Such displays are, how- 
Vol. i. p. 435, 
