ABOUT THE FRANCOLIN.

Partridges by any name would taste as sweet, and when you have learnt that the francolin is one of the few different kinds of partridge, you will have obtained the chief clue to the life-history of these birds. They may in a general way be defined as the representatives in various parts of Asia (as in India and the Caucasus mountains) and Africa, of the well-known family which is so diligently searched for in this country during the month of September. One sort of francolin is still to be met with in the countries of Europe that border on the Mediterranean. The bird was at one time common in Sicily, and it is yet to be found in the island of Cyprus. Some of them live on level plains, and others in forests. They differ from our partridge in that they studiously shun cultivated ground, preferring the proximity of woods, in which they carefully select damp spots overgrown with reeds. In time of danger they conceal themselves in the densest brushwood, out of which they do not emerge until the peril is past. Should no shelter be at hand, they will try to seek safety in flight, and will use their wings only in the last resort. Partridges, as we are all aware, are not averse from feeding many times and oft on grain; but the francolins, whose taste is not so fastidious, will not refuse to dine on the wild berries as well as on grain, while they hunt for worms and insects with a zeal worthy of the cause. Some of them have rather a fondness for perching and roosting on trees of a night, and they display the same affection for their young as partridges show for theirs. The cry is harsher and noisier than that of the latter. There is one sort which has a cry of so curious a description that a good deal of speculation has arisen as to its significance. It sounds like "Tre-tre-tre," and is meant, according to a prosaic Sicilian proverb, to be a declaration by the bird of its market value, which it assesses at three coins. Others have likened its cry to the harsh, grating blast of a cracked trumpet. Such being the case, it is just as well that we have no francolins in this country.