and twigs in a slight hollow behind a stone or bush, and lay from
seven to twelve eggs. The young are able to run about as soon as they
are hatched, and, as we have seen, are most expert and nimble in
concealing themselves. The hen bird when surprised with her young
brood counterfeits lameness, and runs about in great anxiety, as if
wishing to draw attention from her chicks to herself. Their food
consists of the fresh green twigs of heath and other mountain plants,
seeds, and berries. While feeding they run about, and are shy in
taking flight even when they have acquired the use of their wings, but
crouch on the approach of danger, and remain motionless and silent.
When at length they do rise, they fly off in a loose party, and mostly
in a direct line, for a distant part of the mountain, the movement of
their wings resembling that of the Grouse, but being lighter in
character. Early in the season, a long time before Grouse, the coveys
of Ptarmigans unite and form large packs, and it is while thus
congregated that they perform their partial migrations from the high
grounds to what they consider a milder climate, the Norwegian valleys.
There, while the ground is covered thickly with snow, they, to a
certain extent, modify their habits, and perch on trees, sometimes in
such numbers that the branches seem to be altogether clothed in white.
It does not appear that any of these flocks make long journeys or
cross the sea. In Scotland they are no more numerous in winter than in
summer, nor have they been observed to take refuge in the woods. In
the comparatively mild temperature of Scotland there occurs no
lengthened period during which they cannot find their simple food
somewhere in the open country; they consequently do not leave the
moors, but only descend lower.
The Ptarmigan is neither so abundant nor so generally diffused in
Scotland as the Grouse. It is resident on high mountains. It is said
to have existed at one time in the north of England and in Wales; if
so, it has totally disappeared, nor is it known in Ireland.
[42] Rev. A. C. Smith, in the _Zoologist_, vol. viii. p. 2977.
[Illustration:
Great Bustard [M]
Pheasant [M]
Nightjar [M]
Capercaille [M]
[_face p. 220._]]
[Illustration:
Pratincole.
Quail.
Ptarmigan.
Three-toed Sand-grouse. [M] [F]]
FAMILY PHASIANIDÆ
THE PHEASANT
PHASIÁNUS COLCHICUS
Head and neck glossy, with metallic reflections of green, blue,
and purple; sides of the head bare, scarlet, minutely speckled
with black; general plumage spotted and banded with orange-red,
purple, brown, yellow, green, and black, either positive or
reflected; tail very long, of eighteen feathers, the middle
ones longest. _Female_--light brown, marked with dusky; sides
of the head feathered; tail much shorter. Length three feet.
Eggs olive-brown.
This climate suits the Pheasant pretty well, and at most seasons of
the year it finds abundance of food; but in hard winters the supply
diminishes, or fails altogether; and were not food specially scattered
about for it in its haunts, it would either die off from being unable
to withstand cold and hunger together, or become so weak that it would
fall a prey to the smaller rapacious animals, who are not a match for
it when it is strong and active. A healthy cock Pheasant has been
known to beat off a cat; a sickly one would be unable to compete with
a Magpie or Jay. It is, in fact, an exotic running wild, and enabled
to do so only by the care of those who help it to surmount the
inconveniences of a life spent in a foreign land.
The Pheasant is said to have been brought originally from Colchis, a
country on the shores of the Black Sea, and to have derived its name
from the river Phasis, the famous scene of the expedition of the
Argonauts, bearing date about 1200 years before Christ. From this
epoch it is said to have been known to the Athenians, who endeavoured
to acclimatize it for the sake of its beauty as well as the delicacy
of its flesh. The Romans received it from the Greeks; but it was
little known, except by name, in Germany, France, and England, until
the Crusades. The custom was then introduced from Constantinople of
sending it to table decorated with its tail feathers and head, as a
dish for kings and emperors--a special honour until that time confined
to the Peacock. Willughby, in the seventeenth century, says of it
that, from its rarity, delicacy of flavour, and great tenderness, it
seems to have been created for the tables of the wealthy. He tells us,
too, that the flesh of Pheasants caught by hawking is of a higher
flavour, and yet more delicate than when they are taken by snares or
any other method.
The kings of France greatly encouraged the naturalization of the
Pheasants in the royal forests, both as an object of sport and as an
acquisition to the festive board, and were imitated by the nobles and
superior clergy. In the fourteenth century, all the royal forests, the
parks of Berry and the Loire, all the woods and vineyards of the rich
abbeys, were peopled with Pheasants. The male bird was protected by
the title of 'Royal game of the first class', and the killing of a hen
was forbidden under the severest penalties. During the period between
the reigns of Henry IV and Louis XVI its estimation increased. During
the revolution royal edicts were little heeded. Pheasants, no less
than their owners, forfeited their dignity, which, however, rose again
somewhat under the empire. Waterloo, and succeeding events, brought
desolation to the Pheasantries as well as to the deer-parks of France;
and now the royal bird, French authors tell us, is likely to disappear
from the country. Already, the space which it occupies is reduced to a
thirtieth part of the national territory. The centre of this
privileged province is Paris; its radius is not more than
five-and-twenty leagues, and is decreasing every year. Pheasants have
disappeared from the districts of the Garonne and Rhone, while in
Touraine and Berry a few only are to be found in walled parks.
If the Pheasant should ever, in this country, lose the protection of
the Game Laws, it will probably dwindle away in like manner. Under
existing circumstances, it offers an inducement to poaching too
tempting to be resisted. Gamekeepers engage in more affrays with
poachers of Pheasants than of all the other game birds taken
collectively; and if the offence of destroying them were made less
penal than it is at present, they would doubtless diminish rapidly.
Next to Wood Pigeons, they are said to be the most destructive of all
British birds; so that farmers would gladly do their utmost to
exterminate them; their large size and steady onward flight combine to
make them an 'easy shot' for the veriest tyro in gunnery, while the
estimation in which they are held for the table would always secure
for them a value in the market.
The places best adapted for Pheasants are thick woods in the
neighbourhood of water, where there is abundance of shelter on the
ground, in the shape of furze-bushes, brambles, tall weeds, rushes, or
tussock grass; for they pass their lives almost exclusively on the
ground, even roosting there, except in winter, when they fly up in the
evening, and perch on the lower boughs of middling-sized trees. In
April or May, the female bird scratches for herself a shallow hole in
the ground under the shelter of some bushes or long grass, and lays
from ten to fourteen eggs; but not unfrequently she allows might to
prevail over right, and appropriates both the nest and eggs belonging
to some evicted Partridge. The situation of the nests is generally
known to the keepers, and all that are considered safe are left to be
attended to by the owner. Such, however, as are exposed to the
depredations of vermin or poachers are more frequently taken, and the
eggs are placed under a domestic hen.
Pheasant chicks are able to run about and pick up their own food soon
after they have escaped from the egg. This consists of grain, seeds,
an enormous quantity of wireworms, small insects, especially ants and
their eggs, and green herbage. When full grown, they add to this diet
beans, peas, acorns, beech-mast, and the tuberous roots of several
wild plants. A strip of buck-wheat, of which they are very fond, is
sometimes sown for their special benefit along the skirt of a
plantation. In seasons of scarcity they will enter the farmyard, and
either quietly feed with the poultry, or, less frequently, do battle
with the cocks for the sovereignty. A story is told, in the
_Zoologist_, of a male Pheasant, which drove from their perch, and
killed in succession, three fine cocks. The proprietor, with a view to
prevent further loss, furnished a fourth cock with a pair of steel
spurs. Armed with these, the lawful occupant was more than a match for
the aggressor, who, next morning, was found lying dead on the ground
beneath the perch. Another has been known to beat off a cat; and a
third was in the habit of attacking a labouring man. The female is a
timid, unoffending bird, as peaceful in her demeanour as quiet in her
garb. The tints of her plumage, far less gaudy than in the male, are a
protection to her in the nesting season, as being less likely to
attract the notice either of poachers or vermin. Indeed, were she
always to lie close, her nest would not be easily discovered, for the
colour of her feathers so closely resembles that of withered leaves,
that she is, when sitting, less conspicuous than her uncovered eggs
would be.
Common Pheasants are occasionally found having a large portion, or
even the whole, of their plumage white. These, though highly
ornamental when mixed with the common sort, are not prized, owing to
their being a more conspicuous mark for poachers. The 'Ringed
Pheasant' occasionally shot in English preserves is not, as some
maintain, a distinct species; it differs from the typical form of the
bird only in that the neck is partially surrounded by a narrow white
collar passing from the back of the neck to the sides, but not meeting
in front.
THE COMMON PARTRIDGE.
PERDIX CINÉREA
Face, eyebrows, and throat, bright rust-red; behind the eye a
naked red skin; neck, breast, and flanks, ash colour with black
zigzag lines, and on the feathers of the flanks a large
rust-red spot; low on the breast a chestnut patch shaped like a
horseshoe; upper parts ash-brown with black spots and zigzag
lines; scapulars and wing-coverts darker; quills brown, barred
and spotted with yellowish red; tail of eighteen feathers, the
laterals bright rust-red; beak olive-brown; feet grey.
_Female_--less red on the face; head spotted with white; upper
plumage darker, spotted with black; the horseshoe mark
indistinct or wanting. Length thirteen inches. Eggs uniform
olive-brown.
Very few, even of our common birds, are more generally known than the
Partridge. From the first of September to the first of February, in
large towns, every poulterer's shop is pretty sure to be decorated
with a goodly array of these birds; and there are few rural districts
in which a walk through the fields will fail to be enlivened by the
sudden rising and whirring away of a covey of Partridges, in autumn
and winter; of a pair in spring. At midsummer they are of less
frequent appearance, the female being too busily occupied, either in
incubation or the training of her family, to find time for flight; and
at this season, moreover, the uncut fields of hay, clover, and corn
afford facilities for the avoiding of danger, by concealment rather
than by flight. The habits of the Partridge, as of the Grouse, are
especially terrestrial. It never flies, like the Lark, for enjoyment;
and as it does not perch in trees it has no occasion for upward
flight. Still, there are occasions when Partridges rise to a
considerable distance from the ground, and this seems to be when they
meditate a longer flight than usual.
A friend, to whom I am indebted for many valuable notes on various
birds, tells me that when a covey of Partridges are disturbed by a
pack of hounds, they lie close at first, as if terrified by the noise
and bent on concealing themselves; but when the pack actually comes on
them they rise to a great height, and fly to a distance which may be
measured by miles--at least, so he supposes, as he has watched them
diminish and fade from the sight before they showed any sign of
preparing to alight.
The Partridge, though decorated with no brilliant colours, which would
tend to thwart it in its habit of concealing itself among vegetation
of the same general hue as itself, is a beautiful bird. Its gait is
graceful, its feet small and light, its head well raised; and its
plumage, though devoid of striking contrasts, is exquisitely
pencilled, each feather on the back and breast being veined like the
gauzy wings of a fly. The most conspicuous part of the plumage of the
male bird, the horseshoe on its breast, is invisible as it walks or
crouches, and the general tone approaches that of the soil.
Partridges pair early in the year; but the hen does not begin to lay
until May, nor to sit until towards the beginning of June. The nest is
merely a depression in the ground, into which a few straws or dead
leaves have been drawn. It is sometimes placed among brushwood under a
hedge, but more frequently in the border of a field of hay, clover, or
corn, or in the wide field itself. The mowing season, unfortunately,
is not noted in the calendar of Nature; so the mother-bird, who is a
close sitter, is not unfrequently destroyed by the scythe, or, at all
events, is driven away, and returns to find her eggs carried off to be
entrusted to the care of a domestic hen. In unusually wet seasons,
nests which have been fixed in low situations are flooded, and the
eggs being thus reduced to a low temperature become addle. When this
has taken place, the Partridge makes a second laying, and a late brood
is reared.
Notwithstanding this, however, Partridges are exceedingly prolific,
and are said to be increasing in numbers in proportion as new lands
are reclaimed from the waste, although the Red-legged Partridge has
lessened its numbers in some districts. It must certainly be admitted
that, in bad seasons, they are treated with a consideration that would
scarcely be shown towards them if they were simply destroyers of grain
and had nothing to recommend them as objects of sport or as delicacies
for the table. When abundant, they fall freely before the sportsman's
gun; but when the coveys are either small or few, they are treated
with forbearance, and enough are left to stock the preserves for the
ensuing year.
While the hen is sitting, the male bird remains somewhere in the
neighbourhood, and gives timely warning of the approach of danger;
when the eggs are hatched, he accompanies his mate, and shares in the
work of teaching the young to shift for themselves--a lesson which
they begin to learn at once. The food both of old and young birds is,
to a great extent, insects. The young are especially fond of ants and
their pupæ or larvæ. During the year 1860, in which there were no
broods of Partridges, I was much struck by the fact that
stubble-fields abounded, to an unusual degree, with ant-hills. In
ordinary seasons, these are found torn to pieces and levelled. This
year, scarcely one was touched; and even at the present time, the end
of October, winged ants are far more numerous than they usually are at
this time of the year. Besides insects, Partridges feed on the seeds
of weeds, green leaves, grain spilt in reaping, and on corn which has
been sown. This last charge is a serious one; yet, on the whole, it is
most probable that Partridges do far more good than harm on an estate,
the insects and weeds which they destroy more than making amends for
their consumption of seed-corn.
I might fill many pages with anecdotes of the devotion of Partridges
to their maternal duties--their assiduity in hatching their eggs,
their disregard of personal danger while thus employed, their loving
trickeries to divert the attention of enemies from their broods to
themselves, and even the actual removal of their eggs from a
suspectedly dangerous position to a place of safety; but with many of
these stories the reader must be already familiar if he has read any
of the works devoted to such subjects.
The number of eggs laid before incubation commences varies from ten to
fifteen, or more. Yarrell says, 'Twenty-eight eggs in one instance,
and thirty-three eggs in two other instances, are recorded as having
been found in one nest; but there is little doubt, in these cases,
that more than one bird had laid eggs in the same nest.' This may be;
but I find in a French author an instance in which no less than
forty-two eggs were laid by a Partridge in captivity, all of which,
being placed under a hen, would have produced chicks, but for the
occurrence of a thunder-storm accompanied by a deluge of rain which
flooded the nest, when the eggs, which all contained chicks, were on
the point of being hatched. The average number of birds in a covey is,
I believe, about twelve; quite enough to supply the sportsmen and to
account for the abundance of the bird.
The character of the Partridge's flight is familiar to most people.
Simultaneously with the startled cry of alarm from the cock comes a
loud whirr-r-r as of a spinning-wheel: away fly the whole party in a
body, keeping a horizontal, nearly straight line: in turns each bird
ceases to beat its wings and sails on for a few yards with extended
pinions; the impetus exhausted which carried it through this movement,
it plies its wings again, and if it have so long escaped the fowler,
may, by this time, consider itself out of danger, for its flight,
though laboured, is tolerably rapid.
The call of the Partridge is mostly uttered in the evening, as soon as
the beetles begin to buzz. The birds are now proceeding to roost,
which they always do in the open field, the covey forming a circle
with their heads outwards, to be on the watch against their enemies,
of whom they have many. They feed for the most part in the morning
and middle of the day, and vary in size according to the abundance of
their favourite food. In some districts of France, it is said, the
weight of the Partridges found on an estate is considered as a fair
standard test of the productiveness of the soil and of the state of
agricultural skill.
Most people are familiar with the distich:
If the Partridge had the Woodcock's thigh,
It would be the best bird that e'er did flie;
but every one does not know that the saying was in vogue among
epicures in the reign of Charles II.
THE RED-LEGGED PARTRIDGE
CÁCCABIS RUFA
Throat and cheeks white, surrounded by a black band, which
spreads itself out over the breast and sides of the neck in the
form of numerous spots and lines, with which are intermixed a
few white spots; upper plumage reddish ash; on the flanks a
number of crescent-shaped spots, the convexity towards the tail
rust-red, the centre black, bordered by white; beak, orbits,
and feet, bright red. Length thirteen and a half inches. Eggs
dull yellow, spotted and speckled with reddish brown and ash
colour.
The Red-legged Partridge, called also the French and Guernsey
Partridge, is a stronger and more robust bird than the common species,
which it also greatly surpasses in brilliancy of colouring. As some of
its names indicate, it is not an indigenous bird, but a native of the
south of Europe, whence it was first introduced into England in the
reign of Charles II. To Willughby, who lived at that period, it was
unknown except as a native of the continent of Europe and the islands
of Guernsey and Jersey. Towards the close of the last century it was
re-introduced into Suffolk, where it has become numerous; so much so,
indeed, in some places, as to have gained the better of the common
species for a time.
Its flight is rapid, but heavier and more noisy than that of the
Common Partridge. It is less patient of cold, and less able to elude
the attacks of birds of prey. It is quite a terrestrial bird, very
slow in taking flight, and never perching except when hard pressed,
when, on rare occasions, it takes refuge among the thick branches of
an oak or pinaster; here it considers itself safe, and watches the
movements of the dogs with apparent unconcern. Sometimes, too, when
closely hunted, it takes shelter in a rabbit's burrow or the hole of a
tree; but under ordinary circumstances it runs rapidly before the
dogs, and frequently disappoints the sportsman by rising out of shot.
The Grey or Common Partridge frequents rich cultivated lands; the Red
Partridge prefers uncultivated plains, 'which summer converts into
burning causeways, winter into pools of water--monotonous _landes_,
where skeletons of sheep pasture without variation on heath and the
dwarf prickly genista. It delights, too, in bushy ravines, or the
steep sides of rocky hills covered with holly, thorns, and brambles;
and when it resorts to vineyards, it selects those situated on the
sides of steep slopes, where marigolds and coltsfoot are the principal
weeds, rabbits and vipers the most abundant animals.'[43] Red
Partridges are consequently most numerous in the least cultivated
districts of France, especially those between the Cher and the Loire,
and between the Loire and the Seine. Towards the east they do not
extend beyond the hills of Epernay, and do not cross the valley of the
Meuse. The flesh of the Red Partridge is considered inferior to that
of the Grey, and the bird itself is less esteemed by sportsmen as an
object of pursuit. In England it seems to retain its natural taste of
preferring bushy heaths to inclosed land. In the mode of incubation
and rearing the young the two species are much alike.
[43] Toussenel.
THE QUAIL.
COTÚRNIX COMMÚNIS
'This species', says a French naturalist, 'is probably the most
productive of all winged creatures; and it could not well be
otherwise, or it would be unable to withstand the war of extermination
declared against it by human beings and birds of prey. One may get an
idea of the prodigious number of victims which the simple crossing of
the Mediterranean costs the species by two well-known and often quoted
facts. The Bishop of Capri, a wretched islet scarcely a league in
length, which lies at the entrance of the Bay of Naples, used to clear
a net revenue of 25,000 francs a year (£1,000) by his Quails. This sum
represents 160,000 Quails at the lowest computation. In certain
islands of the Archipelago, and parts of the coast of the Peloponnese,
the inhabitants, men and women, have no other occupation during two
months of the year than that of collecting the Quails which are
showered on them from heaven, picking and cleaning them, _salting
them_ ('they spread them all abroad for themselves') and packing them
away in casks for transportation to the principal markets of the
Levant; that is to say, the migration of Quails is to this part of
Greece what the migration of herrings is to Holland and Scotland. The
Quail-catchers arrive at the shore a fortnight in advance, and every
man numbers his ground to avoid disputes. The Quail arrives in France
from Africa early in May, and takes its departure towards the end of
August.'
Another French author says, 'Like Rails, Woodcocks, Snipes, and many
of the waders, the Quail, when it travels towards the sea-shore, flies
only in the night. It leaves the lands, where it has passed the day,
about the dusk of the evening, and settles again with the dawn of the
morning.' Not unfrequently, while performing their transit, they
become weary, and alight on vessels, or fall into the sea, and are
drowned. 'Being at a small town on the coast, in the month of May',
says M. Pellicot, 'I saw some boats come in with ten or a dozen
sharks. They were all opened before me, and there was not one which
had not from eight to twelve Quails in its body.' 'Enormous flights
are annually observed at the spring and fall, after crossing an
immense surface of sea, to take a brief repose in the islands of
Malta, Sicily, Sardinia, Crete, in the kingdom of Naples, and about
Constantinople, where, on these occasions, there is a general shooting
match, which lasts two or three days. This occurs always in the
autumn. The birds, starting from the Crimea about seven at night, and
with a northerly wind, before dawn accomplish a passage of above sixty
leagues in breadth, and alight on the southern shore to feed and
repose. In the vernal season the direction of the flight is reversed,
and they arrive in similar condition on the Russian coast. The same
phenomena occur in Malta, etc.'[44]