The Frenchmen's Nests
The red-legged partridge begins to nest quite a week earlier than the English birds. The keeper expects to find his first partridge's egg about April 25: and probably it will be a Frenchman's. Great will be his satisfaction if the first egg should happen to be an English bird's. The same friendly rivalry exists between neighbouring keepers as to who shall find the first partridge egg as with the first pheasant's egg. Not until May will the partridges' laying season be in full swing. English partridges nest always on the ground, but Frenchmen sometimes nest so far aloft as on the top of a straw-rick. So they escape the fox, which tears the English birds off their nests on all sides. There is an idea in the heads of country folk that the French partridge habitually deserts her first clutch of eggs without cause. No doubt this delusion has arisen from the forsaken appearance of the birds' nests and eggs; when stained by soil, the eggs look decidedly stale. While the mother bird never deserts her nest without good cause, she is in no hurry about nesting; and there are often long intervals between the laying of the first egg, the completion of the clutch, and the beginning of sitting operations. We have heard of a case where this interval was one of six weeks. Yet a full brood was hatched.
French partridges have a good deal in common with guinea-fowls. The call which members of a covey of Frenchmen make to each other bears the strongest resemblance to the guinea-fowl's "Go-back, go-back." They are alike in making a deep "scrape" in the soil for their nest, which is complete when the hollow has been scratched to their liking. Then the dingy-white ground-colour and the rusty speckles of their eggs are similar; and the eggs of guinea-fowl and of Frenchmen are commonly found well plastered and stained with soil, through being turned over in the unlined nest. The eggs have notably thick shells.
