Pancreas, s. The sweetbread.
Par, s. A fish.
The natural history of the samlet, or par, is very doubtful. Some assert it to be a mule produced by the salmon and trout, and as a corroboration of this theory, it is stated that the rivers where the par is found are always resorted to by salmon. Others conjecture it to be a hybrid of the sea and river trout; and Sir Humphry Davy mentions, that fishing in October, in a small stream communicating with the Moy, near Ballina, he caught a number of sea trout, who all proved males, and accordingly infers that “these fish, in which the spermatic system was fully developed, could only have impregnated the ova of the common river trout.”
The par differs from the small mountain trout in colour, and in having additional spines in the pectoral fin. It has also certain olive-bluish marks upon the side, similar to impressions made by the pressure of a man’s fingers.
Great numbers of samlet are found in the upper streams of the Ballycroy river. They will rise voraciously at a fly, provided it be gay and small enough. I remember my friend Sir Charles Cuyler and I amused ourselves on a blank shooting day, when there was neither a sufficiency of wind nor water to warrant salmon fishing, in angling for this hybridous diminutive. We nearly filled our basket; we reckoned them, and they amounted to above two hundred.—Wild Sports.
Partridge, (Tetrao Perdix, Linn.; Le Perdrix Grise, Buff.) s. A bird of game.
THE PARTRIDGE.
The length of this bird is about thirteen inches. The bill is light brown; eyes hazel; the general colour of its plumage is brown and ash, elegantly mixed with black; each feather is streaked down the middle with buff colour; the sides of the head are tawny; under each eye there is a small saffron-coloured spot, which has a granulated appearance, and between the eye and the ear a naked skin of a bright scarlet, which is not very conspicuous but in old birds; on the breast there is a crescent of a deep chestnut colour; the tail is short; the legs are of a greenish white; and are furnished with a small knob behind. The female has no crescent on the breast, and her colours in general are not so distinct and bright as those of the male. Partridges are found chiefly in temperate climates; the extremes of heat and cold are equally unfavourable to them, they are nowhere in greater plenty than in this island, where, in their season, they contribute to our most elegant entertainments. It is much to be lamented, however, that the means taken to preserve this valuable bird should, in a variety of instances, prove its destruction: the proper guardians of the eggs and young ones, tied down by ungenerous restrictions, are led to consider them as a growing evil, and not only connive at their destruction, but too freely assist in it.