20 JULY 1934, Page 15

Rogues A very strange example of the insensate savagery that

seems to overcome the unmated male was observed last year in my immediate neighbourhood. A cock French partridge with no mate attacked the brood of an English pair and would have pecked the young to death. The mother partridge attacked him savagely and drove him back ; but he returned again and again ; and the watchers saw him pick up one chick and shake it as a dog shakes a rat. The French partridge is doubtless a pugnacious species and appears to feel a special hostility towards the English bird, as the grey squirrel against the brown, and the grey rat against the black ; but this incident illustrates rather the perverted instinct of the animal that is called—in reference to the biggest species—a rogue.

W. BEACH THOMAS.