PARTRIDGE. De 
In some countries they are stationary, but in others are 
said to be migratory. 
They frequent the cultivated districts, but coveys are not 
unfrequently met with on the edges of moors in the neigh- 
bourhood of the former localities. They often wander to 
wastes and commons, where gorse, broom, and other wild 
shrubs and plants flourish, and occasionally enter woods. 
Partridges are fond of dusting themselves, and shuffle their 
feathers, in roads or dry places, ike so many other birds. In 
the mornings they repair to the stubble, grass fields, and 
hedge sides, which they leave for the shelter of clover, turnip, 
or potato fields during the midday, returning again towards 
evening to their former feeding-grounds. At night they 
generally lodge in the middle of a field, to be the more 
‘secure, sometimes keeping to the same place for a fortnight 
together; but this exposes them to the nets of the fowler, 
and they require to be protected by bushes being stuck in 
the ground at intervals. They lie in a cluster with their 
heads outward. Where well preserved, they become very tame, 
and exhibit much indifference to the presence of man. It is 
curious to see how totally they already seem to disregard the 
passing of a railway train, sometimes alighting close to one, 
or remaining in a field adjoining quite near. Some have been 
killed by flying against a train in motion, and others, as indeed 
various other birds, by dashing in their flight against the 
telegraph wires, the ‘electric shock’ proving fatal to them. 
Like so many other birds, they also, and even in an especial 
degree, use earnest devices to entice away supposed enemies 
from their nest. One has been known to feign to be dead, 
and scarcely could be frightened to get up, but then it flew 
away quite well; another to peck at the feet of a person who 
approached her young. ‘The art of the Partridge is familiar 
to the sportsman, and excites admiration in all the lovers of 
nature. At the signal for silence and retreat the infant young 
may be seen to run to the nearest cover, while the parent 
seems seized with a sudden lameness and inability to fly; or 
the male will practice this device, fluttering off to a distance 
in an apparently disabled manner, and then suddenly dropping, 
as if dead, will return by some circuitous route to the place 
he had left, the hen meanwhile having collected the young 
under her wings. Or else she flutters along the ground with 
drooping wings In an opposite direction to that which the 
brood has taken, and not until she has successfully misled the 
