216 PARTRIDGE. 
they are mostly concealed by the standing corn, and in the 
autumn in any other cover, and along hedges and ditches, 
and in osier beds, where there are any, and other situations. 
Some are said to subsist on heath and whortleberries in places 
where these grow, and to acquire the flavour of Grouse: they 
drink but little. 
The call of the Partridge, ‘chicurr, chicurrr,’ is heard early 
in the spring, and even in the winter months, at the close 
of day, a summons together after separation; I have heard 
it on the 7th. of this present December, 1853, after a hard 
white frost still unthawed in the shade. It is especially 
frequent in the still summer evenings, when the silence is 
pleasingly broken in upon by it, or the ‘droning flight’ of 
the beetle, or some other country sound, equally speaking to 
the listening ear of happy rural life. They have a note of 
caution and warning, on hearing which the young steal away 
to the nearest place of security, and there remain concealed 
till a cluck from the dam announces that the danger has 
disappeared. 
These birds begin to pair very early, even so soon, as has 
been observed, as the 3rd. of February in Yorkshire, and by 
the Ist. elsewhere; usually between that date and the 14th., 
and are then found in ploughed and clover fields. At those 
times there are often fierce combats between the male birds. 
Some few never pair at all, perhaps for want of mates. The 
young of more than one nest sometimes join together in 
coveys. It is said that they remain as long as three weeks 
in the neighbourhood where they think of making their nest, 
apprehensive of choosing a dangerous site, and if the one 
first selected appears to be such, they fix themselves somewhere 
else. 
The nest is only a few straws placed in a mere hollow 
scratched in the earth, under the shelter perhaps of some 
tuft, generally in open grass and other fields, among peas, 
corn, weeds, or herbage, at the foot of a tree or bush, or 
by a post, but at times in a small plantation, among shrubs, 
under a hedgerow, even by the road-side, and on the moors 
in the vicinity of cultivated land; sometimes in holes of 
decayed trees, as much as three or four feet from the ground, 
and even on the top of hay-stacks; I have been told of a 
nest placed in this situation, the coveys hatched, and safely 
reared. A brace of Partridges have been known, their own 
nest having been destroyed, to take up with the nest and 
