3 ) 
Just when the Partridges arrived at the tree this 
morning I am unable to say. I saw them first, as I have already 
stated, about six o'clock; they began departing some twenty 
minutes latex, one or two at a time, at intervals of a minute 
or less, flying straight to the neighboring woods but in 
three or four different directions, suggesting that they had 
corne from several different places. I feel very sure that 
all which visited the orchard this morning assembled in the 
tree near the barn although to reach it they had to pass over 
or near fifty or more apple trees which stand between it and 
the woods. It would be interesting to know whether they 
have exhausted the supply of palatable buds (they never take 
them all or in sufficient numbers, even, to appreciably 
injure the trees) elsewhere in the orchard or have only just 
discovered that the buds on this particular tree are especially 
abundant or savory. 
2 
