PARTRIDGE. 219 
newspaper it is stated that two brace were shot near Brecon; 
‘there breasts were snowy white, and round their heads was 
a ring of the same colour. One was shot near York in 
September, 1851, which had the upper mandible very much 
elongated and curved upwards and backwards, something like 
that of the Avocet. It is difficult to understand how the bird 
could have well fed itself, nevertheless it was in good condition. 
White varieties are not very unfrequently met with, and 
cream-coloured ones; others with the tints all faded, and 
others more or less pied with white. Sir William Jardine 
describes one with the usual markings, but of a deeper general 
hue, and without the horse-shoe; the head, neck, and patch 
on the breast brown, and the space about the bill black. A 
very curious circumstance is recorded in “The Naturalist,’ 
volume i., page 37, by John Dixon, Esq., of eight young 
birds being killed, all with a malformation of the bill, it 
being bent upwards. 
