PARTRIDGE. 
281 
RA SORES. 
TETRA ON I DAE. 
PARTRIDGE. 
Perdix cinerea. 
PLATE LXXI. FIG. I. 
The Partridge, though everywhere more or less fre¬ 
quent, is most numerous in the counties of Norfolk and 
Suffolk. It is usually met with amongst the crops of the 
cultivated land; but I have not unfrequently found a 
covey upon those heathy, uncultivated moors which bor¬ 
der on vegetation; they are, in such places, wild and 
wary, and difficult to shoot. 
The Partridge lays its eggs either upon the bare 
ground, or upon a few pieces of dry grass carelessly 
scraped together; they are deposited in open pastures, 
meadows, and corn-fields ; in a tuft of grass, or under 
the shelter of furze or other brushwood ; amongst newly 
planted trees, and at the bottom of a thorn-hedge. 
The eggs are numerous; they are usually ten or twelve, 
but are said, in some instances, to equal eighteen or 
twenty in number; they differ, like those of the phea¬ 
sant, many being considerably lighter than the plate. 
The assiduous perseverance of the Partridge during in¬ 
cubation is well known; numbers of instances might 
be given in illustration; none, perhaps, more striking 
than that mentioned by Montagu, of one which allowed 
itself and eggs to be deposited in a hat, and thus carried 
unresistingly into captivity, where it continued to sit 
them till the young ones were brought out. 
