When partridges are penned up for a few months in the breeding season, on the French system of rearing, they remain faithful to their rule of pairing. Keepers have found that it is useless to try to regulate the partridge courtships: the birds must be left to their own instincts in choosing mates. It will not do to put any cock and hen together and expect them to pair. The hen is quite as particular in accepting a mate as the cock in selecting one for his attentions. Sometimes a hen wins the hearts of several suitors, and then there will be fighting, the strongest securing the prize, the defeated contentedly pairing off with the less sought-for hens. When a partridge betrothal has been ratified, the happy pair announce the fact to their friends by keeping sedulously together, apart from the other occupants of the general pen. The partridge is seldom quarrelsome: in a wild state a cock bird will go far afield in search of a mate if he cannot find one peaceably in his usual haunts--or he may make up his mind to go through the season unwedded. Sometimes, but rarely, it will happen that trouble arises through an amorous cock partridge losing his mate late in the nesting season and trying to run away with another's wife. But while some partridges show a pugnacious temperament, as they boast no spurs, like cock pheasants, their duels mostly take the form of chasing and running. * * * * * When Hawks Nest In March the hawks pair--and the pairs visit and examine all sorts of old nests. The nest of a kestrel is usually found in the heart of a wood--though it may be recognised as a kestrel's only by the sight of the birds flying off, for they rear their young in old sparrow-hawks' nests, or in a magpie's, a crow's, or in a squirrel's abandoned drey. The sparrow-hawk builds its own nest, as a rule, of rough sticks, with twigs as lining, usually placed near the tree's trunk. It will return to the same nest year after year. But at times the nest of a wood-pigeon is adopted, or of a carrion crow. The cock sparrow-hawk is a polite mate, perhaps of necessity, being so inferior to the hen bird in size and strength. He is energetic in inspecting nest-sites, in advance of his mate. This habit has proved fatal to many, for it is a favourite plan with some keepers to place a circular gin in likely nests--a cruel trick, and illegal, for the law which prohibits the use of the pole-traps forbids also that traps shall be set in nests. Faithful as are hawks and magpies to each other, it is strange how swiftly a new mate is secured should an old one suffer a fatal accident. In the earlier part of the breeding season, a hen sparrow-hawk may lose her mate time after time; yet a new mate is quickly at her side, though no other hawks are to be seen about the country, except those in pairs. * * * * * Love-Dances