ZOOLOGICAL MUSEUM, TRING. 
41 
wanderers lose their lives sooner or later. It has been 
suggested that they would have survived if they had 
not been shot down, but such an idea seems absurd, 
as the climate and nature of the British Islands is far 
different from that of Central Asia. 
The Common Partridge, Perdix perdix or P. cinerea, 
is exhibited in a great number of varieties, some, 
like the chestnut ones and the Russian silvery grey 
ones, being of exceeding beauty and rarity for a lover 
of aberrations. Total albinoes are more common 
among these birds. The (mostly African or Indian) 
Francolins, FrancoUnus, are close allies to the 
Partridges, and the Quail may, cum grano salis, be 
called a diminutive Perdix. Attention may be called 
to the pretty group of the Quail with its downy 
young. The pretty Quail has of late years unfortu- 
nately become much rarer both in England and in 
Germany. The enthusiastic “bird-preserver” and 
the public in general have soon been ready to ascribe 
this diminution to the destruction of great quantities 
of Quails in the countries of the Mediterranean ; but 
those who know more of nature and the conditions 
of bird-life have understood that — as in most cases — 
not the “murdering in the south,” but our own 
countries with their changed conditions, the (for the 
zoologist !) unfortunate drainage, high farming, and 
cultivation, are the root of the evil. 
Turning round we face, opposite to the Partridge 
C0>se, a large corner case, in which, on the narrow side 
