Chapter IX.

1. The heavy birds do not make nests, for it does not agree with their mode of flight, as the quail, partridge, and all such birds; but when they have made a hole in the smooth ground (for they never produce their young in any other place), they collect together some thorns and sticks for a defence against the hawks and eagles, and there lay their eggs and incubate. As soon as the young are hatched, they lead them out, because their slow flight prevents them from procuring food for them. The quail and partridge shelter their young under their wings, like the domestic fowl.

2. They do not lay and incubate in the same place, lest any one should discover the place while they sat there for a long while; and when any one in hunting falls upon the nest, the partridge halts before him, as if she could be taken, and draws him after her in the hopes of capture, until all the young ones have had time to escape, and after she flies back and recalls them to their nest. The partridge does not lay less than ten eggs, and often sixteen. As it has been already observed, it is a bird of an evil and cunning disposition. In the spring they separate with singing and fighting into pairs with the females which each may happen to take. The partridge being a bird of violent passions, it tries to prevent the female from incubation by rolling and breaking the eggs, if it can find them. The female, opposing this artifice by another, lays her eggs as she runs, and often, from her desire of laying, she drops her eggs wherever she may be, if the male is present; and, that they may all be preserved, she does not return to them. If she is observed by men, she leads them away from her eggs as from her young ones, and shows herself just before them until they are drawn away from the nest.

3. When the hen has escaped for incubation, the cocks crow and fight together. These are called widowers. The vanquished in the combat follows his conqueror who alone has intercourse with him; and if any one is overcome by a second, or by any chance one, the victor has secret intercourse with him. This does not take place always, but only at certain seasons of the year. The quail does the same, and domestic fowls also; for when a new one is offered in the temples, where they are kept without the females, all in turn are united with it. Tame partridges have sexual intercourse with wild ones, and strike and insult them.

4. The leader of the wild partridges attacks the partridge used in fowling, and goes out crowing as if he would fight. When he is taken in the trap, the other goes out and crows in the same manner. If the partridge used for fowling is a cock, they behave in this way; but if it is a female, and she calls, the leader answers her call; and all the rest rise up and beat him, and drive him away from the female, because he attends to her instead of themselves. For this reason he often comes silently, that the others may not hear his voice and come out to fight him. And some experienced fowlers say that the male approaches the female in silence, that the other males may not hear him and compel him to fight them. The partridge not only calls, but also utters a shrill cry and other sounds.

5. And it often happens, when the hen is sitting, that if she sees the male approaching the decoy bird, she will get up from her nest and remain in his way, that he may have intercourse with her, and not be drawn away by the decoy bird. Partridges and quails have such violent sexual desires that they will fall upon the fowlers and often perch upon their heads.