Vanishing Partridges ?
An alarm has been raised, distressing to the naturalist as to the sportsman, that the tribe is dwindling. It is true that the species peculiarly delight in high arable farming of the old sort. For a long while the barley fields of Norfolk and Cambridge were incomparable ; but perhaps even there one reason for the flourishing of the partridge was the juxta- position of tilled and untilled land on a dry soil. Feeding ground and nesting ground and resting ground were supplied side by side. Though the partridge is as fond of barley as any brewer, it is adaptable. It is, for example, particularly devoted to allotments and to gardens, and need not disappear or even diminish where fruit or green crops succeed grain. Now experiments are being made on a very scientific system to see whether the race of partridge may not be greatly increased. Their preferences in food, and in mating, their daily habits, their little migrations, their eugenics are all being studied on a spacious " partridge farm " ; and already it seems likely that with a little more care and knowledge of their needs many more birds may be bred at little cost and many more broods saved from wastage by weakness or
disease. * * * *
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