They foot away before a pointer like an old Cock Grouse ;
and unless the sportsman can drive them into furze, or some
other such thick bottom, through which they cannot thread
their way, but little chance of success attends him. When
wounded, they will run to ground in a rabbit-burrow, or any
other hóle they can find.
Occasionally they perch in trees, and have been seen on
the upper bar of a gate, or the top. of a lift of paling. Mr.
Daniel mentions that the covey of fourteen , which he found
"near Colchester, were in a vèry thick, piece of turnips, and for
half an hour baffled the exertions of a brace of good pointers,
to make them take wing; and the first which did so immediately
perched on the hedge, and was shot in that-situation,
“without its being known what bird it was; a leash more wërè
at length sprung from the .turnips and shot; - and two days
after a brace more were killed by another person. Some
years after, when out at Sudboum with a gentleman who was
particularly anxious to kill some of these Red-legged Partridges,
and hunted with a brace of capital pointers for them
only, the instant the dogs stood, the red birds ran, and
always took wing, notwithstanding all the speed exerted to
head them, at such distances as to dbe out of the •mnge of
shot; yet upon the same ground, and on the same day, after
changing, the: mode~*o'f shooting, these *birds lay''torlome'
springing spaniels till the dogs almost touched them- before
they rose, and two brace and a .half were killed. Thé flesh
of the Red-legged Partridge- is white, but rather more dry,
and not so much in request. as that of the Common Partridge.
The red-bird has been known to' breed'in confinement,
which .the Common Partridge does not.--
This bird is not an inhabitant of Germany or Holland,
according to Continental authors, but it is found in France,
Provence, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, and is probably confounded
sometimes with two other species of Red-legged
Partridges which are found in Barbary and Greece, and from
thence to a; considerable distance eastward.
M. Temminck mentions^ in the fourth part of his Manual,
that this species is also an inhabitant of Japan, and does not
exhibit there any 'difference either in its form or the colouring
of its plumage.
The adult male has the beak re d ; from the nostrils a
black streak passés- to theMéyef and recommencing behind the
%ye passes downwards and then forwards, joining in front,
forming a gorget of black, from which, both on the sides of
the neck and in the front, numerous ‘ bMok streaks and spots
descend towards thé breast; the iridès reddish, orange, ’ eyelids
vermilion re d ; top of the head with a line of white
before and behind the eye ; back of the neck, the shoulders,
back, wing-coverts> rump, and upper tailjcoverts, hair-brown,
the plumage smooth and blended; wing-feathers greyish
black, with a margin of wood-brown on the outer web ; tail-
feathers chestnut; breast pearlrgrey; belly, vent, and under
tail-coverts, fawn-c"èh©ur; feathers of the sides, flanks, and
thighs transversely barred with pearl-grey, white, black, and
fawn-colour; legs . and toes red, the former with a blunt
rounded knob in the situation of a spur ; the claws brown.
Whole length thirteen inches and a half. From the
carpal j o il® to the end of the'-wing six inches and one
quarter; the first quill-feather as long as the sixth, but both
shorter than the second,, third, fourth, ori fifth, which are
nearly- equal, and the longest in the wing.
The female is rather smaller than the male ; but does not
differ much, except that the plumage is not quite so bright in
colour, and she has no rounded spur-like knob on the legs.