The Common Partridge. 317 
into the way of danger, in order to mislead the enemy. 
He flutters along the ground, hanging his wings, and 
exhibiting every symptom of debility. By this strata- 
gem he seldom fails of so far attracting the attention of 
the intruder as to allow the female to conduct the help- 
less unfledged brood into some place of security. 
The nest is usually on the ground ; but on the farm 
of Lion Hall, in Essex, belonging to Colonel Hawker, 
a Partridge, in the year 1788, formed her nest, and 
hatched sixteen eggs, on the top of a pollard oak-tree ! 
What renders this circumstance the more remarkable 
is, that the tree had fastened to it the bars of a stile, 
where there was a footpath ; and the passengers, in 
going over, discovered and disturbed her before she sat 
close. When the brood was hatched, the birds scrambled 
down the short and rough boughs, which grew out all 
around the trunk of the tree, and reached the ground in 
safety. It has long been a received opinion among 
sportsmen, as well as among naturalists, that the female 
Partridge has none of the bay feathers of the breast 
like the male. This, however, is a mistake ; for Mr. 
Montague happening to kill nine birds in one day, with 
very little variation as to the bay mark on the breast, 
he was led to open them all, and discovered five of 
them were females. On carefully examining the plu- 
mage, he found that the males could only be known by 
the superior brightness of colour about the head ; which 
alone, after the first or second year, seems to be the 
true mark of distinction. They fly in coveys till about 
the third week in February, when they separate and 
pair ; but if the weather be very severe, it is not unusual 
to see them collect together again. We are told that a 
gamekeeper, in Dorsetshire, hearing a Partridge utter a 
cry of distress, was attracted by the sound into a field 
of oats, when the bird ran round him very much agi- 
tated ; upon his looking among the corn, he saw in the 
midst of her infant brood a laige snake, which he killed ; 
and perceiving its body much distended, he opened it, 
when to his astonishment two young Partridges ran 
from their prison, and joined their mother ; two others 
were found dead in its stomach. Partridges have ever 
