The COMMON PARTRIDGE (_Perdix cinerea_, or _Starna cinerea_) is distinguishable from the above birds by the coloration of its plumage, by the plates protecting the feet forming two distinct rows both before and behind, by the absence of the spur-like wart on the tarsus, and by the formation of its wing, the third, fourth, and fifth quills of which are longer than the rest; the tail is composed of sixteen or eighteen feathers. In this species the brow, a broad line above and behind the eye, and the sides of the head and throat, are light rust-red, the rest of the head is brown, marked with yellow, and the grey beak is striped with rust-red; the feathers are delicately traced with black zigzag lines, and have light shafts: a broad dark band, varied with black, adorns the breast, and passes along both sides of the belly, where it is interrupted by various rust-red streaks, surrounded by a white line. The white belly has a large horseshoe-shaped brown spot at its centre; the rump-feathers and those in the centre of the tail are streaked with shades of brown; the primary quills are pale brownish black, spotted with reddish yellow. The eye is nut-brown, the eye-space and stripe that passes behind it are both red, the beak is blueish grey, and the foot reddish grey or brown; the female is smaller than her mate, and less pleasing in her colour: her back is darker, and her belly without the brown patch in its centre. The male is twelve inches long and twenty broad, and the wing measures six, and the tail three inches. The Common Partridge is almost exclusively a European bird. Mr. Gould states that in his extensive observations he has never met with a single species either from Africa or Asia. Temminck, however, tells us that it visits Egypt and the shores of Barbary, and Russian naturalists have included it among the birds found between the Caspian and Black Seas, south of the Caucasus. In Europe it is extensively distributed in all suitable localities, and inhabits all the level parts of England and Scotland.