RED-LEGGED PA11TEIDGE.
GUERNSEY PARTRIDGE. FRENCH PARTRIDGE.
Perdix rufa, MONTAGU. FLEMING,
Tetrao ru/us Be w i c k . .
Perdix—A Partridge. Rufa. Rrtfrts—Rvd.
T i n s handsome species is a native of various parts of the south of
Europe, being plentiful in Germany, France, Portugal, Spain, and
I t a l y , and also met w i t h in Austria, Bohemia, and Switzerland, likewise
in Guernsey and Jersey, and it is said in Madeira. It also
occurs plentifully in the north of Africa, and in Asia—in Japan.
Red-legged Partridges were introduced into this country in the
reign of King Charles the Second in the neighbourhood of Windsor,
and afterwards more recently by the Duke of Northumberland, and
t h e Ear] of Rochfordj also b y t h e Marquis of Hertford at Sudbourne,
near Orford, in Suffolk, and b y Lord Rendlesham, at Rendlesham, in
the same neighbourhood. These have increased, and are now abunt
i e s a m e n e i g n u u m u u u « . J - . I ^ ~ ' • 1 1 . -i- ••- w — , r t w i , i ™
dan. upon Dunmingworth Heath, and from Aldborough to W o o d b n d g e ,
from whence they have spread over the adjoining eount.es. Some
„ e i ewere t u r n e d out b y the Ma r q u i s of Ha s t i n g s , at Do nmn g t o n c u r n e u u i u mv. *
D e r b y s h i r e , but a few seasons saw t h em extinguished. The Rev. T .
Fowler, in two instances, has known these birds found upon the beach
in an exhausted state, as if after n long flight. They have been met
with in Essex, near Colchester. In Yorkshire several are said to
have been shot near Doncastcr j one also near Wakefield. Some
have made their appearance in Roger Wildrake's 'moist county of
Lincoln;' others near Koyston, in Hertfordshire; and t h e species has
been met with at I ' p w a y , near Weymouth, Dorsetshire; in Devonshire
also a few.
The Hon. Thomas Littleton Powys has written to m e of t h e occurrence
of but one of these birds in the neighbourhood of Lilford, Northamptonshire,
which, as he observes, 'considering its abundance in
Norfolk and Suffolk, is rather a curious circumstance.' A covey of