PRESIDENT-—THE EARL OF CLARENDON. 
5 
and beak open till she was almost at my feet. I must confess that 
I was not muck terrified and should have bad but little difficulty 
in repelling the attack, but what filled me with astonishment and 
admiration was that a bird naturally so wary and timid should, by 
reason of motherly instinct and protective love of her offspring, 
have even approached man, her deadly foe, and I could not resist 
comparing this brave onslaught, made only on behalf of her brood, 
with the precipitate flight which, on the approach of the enemy, 
she and they some months later would take, when they would no 
longer need her protection. On another occasion, as I was walking 
in the middle of a field about the same time of year, I startled a 
covey of partridges. The young ones were just able to fly, but one 
of the parent birds kept close to me, flying round me near the 
ground, uttering its shrill cry, and trailing one of its wings with a 
view of inducing me to believe it was wounded and so to distract 
my attention from its young family until they should be out of 
danger. In the human race we know full well that the loving 
mother is ready to brave danger, disease, and death itself, for the 
sake of her child, but what are we to say of this Grod-given instinct 
in the brute creation, save that it is marvellous in our eyes and that 
it is so deep that it passes our understanding! It may not be 
generally known that the male partridge is the most loving, 
domestic, and dutiful of consorts. He takes an equal share with 
his partner in the onerous duties of incubation, and I have myself 
watched day after day the hen bird leaving her nest in order to 
procure necessary sustenance, and her mate running or flying from 
a distance to relieve her in her sedentary duties; moreover, when 
the brood is hatched, both the parents are equally assiduous in their 
love, care, and protection of their young. It is a well-known fact 
that should the weather be unpropitious on the day of hatching, 
one or other of the parent birds will sit on the nest till the storm is 
past and there is no longer any danger of the young birds being 
washed away by the torrents of rain which sometimes visit us 
during the summer months. On another occasion, just as I was 
emerging from a wood, I saw about 800 yards away a covey of 
partridges feeding in a field. After watching them for some time 
I saw a fox approaching them, and, although he passed within a 
few yards, their instinct told them that at all events at that time 
one of the deadliest foes to their race meant them no harm, for they 
hardly moved out of his way; but when I showed myself, and man 
appeared on the scene, even though at this great distance, up went 
