A PARTRIDGE PROBLEM.
It is a good year for most things, for birds and beasts as for plants, though a bad year, for some unknown reason, for many insects, including butterflies and, some say, the disease- carrying fly. Certainly both grouse and partridges have flourished, though, as usual, accounts vary. What is entirely surprising is that, though the spring was very late and rather cold, many of the broods were very early. Personally, I seldom saw wild pheasants hatched earlier ; and on the last day of July I flushed one big covey of partridges which had already passed the stage of the squeaker, and others that flew easily for a considerable distance. How comes it about that the partridges were early, but the plover altogether abnormally late in nesting ? Doubtless one reason for the strength of the coveys is plentiful food and favourable weather. The rate of growth is astonishingly different in different years for partridges and pheasants, if not for grouse.
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