as big as Hen-hawks. All were busily engaged in "budding", an 
operation which I have never before witnessed to good 
advantage. It was most interesting as well as surprising to 
see birds,ordinarily so shy and retiring and so very stately 
and dignified of bearing,hopping and fluttering about in the 
top of a leafless, isolated tree near a. house with the 
utmost activity, sprightliness and apparent fearlessness. 
There were times, however, when they would all sit erect and 
motionless for a moment, evidently looking about and listening. 
Those feeding near the ends of the slenderer branches 
maintained their foothold with no slight effort, jerking up 
their tails and fluttering their wings to preserve their 
balance as they stretched forward or even, for an instant, 
bent almost straight downward after the manner of Redpolls 
or Pine Siskins, picking off and swallowing the buds in 
rapid succession with much the same quick, bobbing motion of 
the head as that of a Hen picking up corn. The supply within 
reach (at least of such buds as they chose to take) seldom 
lasted more than a minute or two; when it became exhausted 
the Partridge would either work its way still further out 
among the terminal twigs or fly to another part of the tree. 
The birds which resorted to the large branches behaved 
somewhat differently and with much greater dignity and de¬ 
liberation owing, no doubt, to the fact that such buds as 
they were able to obtain grew on short twigs within easy 
reachgof the firm and comparatively broad surfaces of the 
branches on which they could -walk or stand as securely as on 
the ground. 
