PARTRIDGE, in ornithology. See TETRAO.

The partridge is so valuable at the table, that a great many ways of taking it have been invented by sportsmen, all of which succeed from the natural folly and timidity of the animal.

The places partridges delight in most are corn-fields, especially Partridge, especially whilst the corn grows, for under that cover they shelter and breed: neither are those places unfrequented by them when the corn is cut down, by reason of the grain they find there, especially in wheat-stubble, the height of which they delight in, being to them as a covert or shelter. When the wheat-stubble is much trodden by men or beasts, they then betake themselves to the barley-stubble, provided it be fresh and untrodden; and they will, in the furrows, amongst the clots, branches, and long grass, hide both themselves and coveys, which are sometimes 20 in number, nay 30, in a covey.

When the winter-season is arrived, and the stubble-fields are ploughed up, or over-foiled with cattle, partridges resort into the upland meadows, and lodge in the dead-grass, or fog under hedges, amongst mole-hills, or under the roots of trees; sometimes they resort to coppices and under-woods, especially if any corn-fields are adjacent, or where there is grown broom, brakes, fern, &c.

In the harvest-time, when every field is full of men and cattle, in the day-time they are found in the fallow-fields which are next adjoining to the corn-fields, where they lie lurking till evening or morning, and then they feed among the sheaves of corn.

When their haunts are known, according to the situation of the country and season of the year, the next care must be to find them out in their haunts, which is done several ways. Some do it by the eye only; and this art can never be taught, but learned by frequent experience, the colour of the birds being so like that of the earth at a distance, that no eye but a very conversant one could distinguish them. When they are once seen, the business is to keep the eye upon them, and then to keep in continual motion. They are a very lazy bird, and by this means will let a person almost tread upon them; though if the person stands still to eye them, they will rise immediately though they be at a considerable distance.

Another method of discovering them is, by going to their haunts very early in the morning, or at the close of the evening, which is called the jacking-time. The noise of the cock partridge is to be attended to at this time, and is very loud and earnest. The hen will soon come up to the cock after her making the noise, which she does by way of answer; and when they are got together, their chattering will discover them. Thus they may always be found at these times.

But there is yet a better method of finding this bird, which is by the call. The business, in order to have success in this way, is carefully to learn the notes of the partridge, and be able to imitate all the several sounds. When perfect in this, the person is to go to the haunts morning and evening, and placing himself in some place where he cannot see the birds without being seen by them, he is to listen to their calling; and when they are heard, he is to answer in the same notes, doubling again as they do: by continuing this, they may be brought so near, that the person lying down on his back may count their whole number. Having in this manner found where the birds are, the next care is to catch them.

They are so foolish, that it is extremely easy to take them in nets. In order to this, there needs no more than the going out, provided with two or three nets, with meshes somewhat smaller than those of the pheasant nets, and walking round about the covey, a net is to be fixed so as to draw over them, on pulling a line at a distance. All this may be easily done; for so long as the sportsman continues moving about, and does not fix his eye too intensely upon them, they will let him come near enough to fix the net without moving. If they lie so straggling, that one net will not cover them, then two or three must be fixed in the same manner. The sportsman may then draw the nets over them, and they will often lie still with the nets upon them till he comes up to fright them; then they will rise, and be entangled in the net.

A second method of taking them is with birdlime; this is done by means of wheat-straws. These must be large, and cut off between knot and knot; they must be well limed with the best and strongest birdlime, and the sportsman must carry a great number out with him. Having found a field where there are partridges, he is to call; and if they answer, he is then to stick up the limed straws in rows across two or three lands, and going backward, call again to them, leading them on in the road where the straws are: they will follow one another like a flock of chickens, and come out to the call; and will in their way run upon the straws, and liming themselves they will daub one another by crowding together, so that very few of them will be able to escape.

But there is yet a pleasanter way of taking them than this, that is, by driving of them. In order to this, an engine is to be made of canvas stuffed with straw, to represent a horse; this horse and nets are to be taken to the haunts of the partridges, and the nets being placed slanting or flopwise in the lower part of the field, the sportsman is to take the wind in his back and get above them, driving them downwards; his face is to be covered with something green or blue, and placing the horse before him, he is to go towards them slowly and gently; and by this means they will be raised on their legs, but not on their wings, and will run before the horse into the nets. If in the way they go into a wrong path, the horse is to be moved to face them; and they will be thus driven back again, and driven every way the sportsman pleases.

The partridges of Abyssinia, we are told, are very large, being as big as capons.

In Jeremiah xvii. 11, we have the following curious passage: "As the partridge fitteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of his days, and at his end shall be a fool;" which is explained by Mr Pool as follows. It is no wonder if we cannot be certain as to the sense of these words, so far as they concern natural history, when we are not certain what bird it is to which this doth relate. We translate it partridge: others will have it to be a cuckow: but certain it is, that it is the same word which we translate partridge (r Sam.xxvi. 20.) and cuckows use not to be much hunted after. How the partridge is said to fit on eggs and hatch them not, is yet a greater question. It may be occasioned in many ways, viz. either sitting upon wind-eggs; or being killed before the eggs are hatched; or having its eggs destroyed by the male partridge, or by some dog or other vermin; or, its nest being found, having her eggs taken from her, that it is hard September 1548 she died in childbed. The historians of this period generally insinuate that she was poisoned by her husband, to make way for his marriage with the lady Elizabeth.

That Catharine Parr was beautiful is beyond a doubt: that she was pious and learned is evident from her writings; and that her prudence and sagacity were not inferior to her other accomplishments, may be concluded from her holding up the passion of a capricious tyrant as a shield against her enemies; and that at the latter end of his days, when his passions were enfeebled by age, and his peevish austerity increased by disease. She wrote, 1. Queen Catharine Parr's lamentation of a sinner, bewailing the ignorance of her blind life; Lond. 8vo, 1548, 1563. 2. Prayers or meditations, wherein the mind is stirred patiently to suffer all afflictions here, to set at nought the vain prosperity of this world, and always to long for the everlasting felicity. Collected out of holy works, by the most virtuous and gracious princess Catharine, queen of England, France, and Ireland. Printed by John Wayland, 1545, 4to.—1561, 12mo. 3. Other Meditations, Prayers, Letters, &c. unpublished.

Parr (Thomas), or Old Parr, a remarkable Englishman, who lived in the reigns of ten kings and queens; married a second wife when he was 120, and had a child by her. He was the son of John Parr, a husbandman of Winnington, in the parish of Alderbury, in the county of Salop, where he was born in the year 1483. Though he lived to the vast age of upwards of 152 years, yet the tenor of his life admitted but of little variety; nor can the detail of it be considered of importance, further than what will arise from the gratification of that curiosity which naturally inquires after the mode of living which could lengthen life to such extreme old age. Following the profession of his father, he laboured hard, and lived on coarse fare. Taylor the water-poet says of him:

Good wholesome labour was his exercise, Down with the lamb, and with the lark would rise; In mire and toiling sweat he spent the day, And to his team he whiffled time away: The cock his night-clock, and till day was done, His watch and chief sun-dial was the sun. He was of old Pythagoras' opinion, That green cheese was most wholesome with an onion; Coarse meal bread, and for his daily swig, Milk, butter-milk, and water, whey and whig: Sometimes mead, and by fortune happy, He sometimes sipp'd a cup of ale most nappy, Cyder or perry, when he did repair To a Whitton ale, wake, wedding, or a fair, Or when in Christmas-time he was a guest At his good landlord's house amongst the rest: Else he had little leisure-time to waste, Or at the ale-house huff-cap ale to taste. Nor did he ever hunt a tavern fox; Ne'er knew a coach, tobacco, or the like. His physic was good butter, which the foil Of Salop yields, more sweet than Candy oil; And garlic he esteem'd above the rate Of Venice treacle, or telf mithridate. He entertain'd no gout, no ache he felt, The air was good and temperate where he dwelt;

While mavis's and sweet-tongu'd nightingales Did chant him roundelay and madrigals. Thus living within bounds of Nature's laws, Of his long lasting life may be some cause.

And the same writer describes him in the following two lines:

From head to keel, his body had all over A quick set, thick set, natural hairy cover.

The manner of his being conducted to London is also noticed in the following terms: "The Right Hon. Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey, earl-marshal of England, on being lately in Shropshire to visit some lands and manors which his lordship holds in that county, or for some other occasions of importance which caused his lordship to be there, the report of this aged man was signified to his honour, who hearing of so remarkable a piece of antiquity, his lordship was pleased to see him; and in his innate, noble, and Christian piety, he took him into his charitable tuition and protection, commanding that a litter and two horses (for the more easy carriage of a man so feeble and worn with age) to be provided for him; also, that a daughter of his, named Lucy, should likewise attend him, and have a horse for her own riding with him; and to cheer up the old man, and make him merry, there was an antique-faced fellow, with a high and mighty no-beard, that had also a horse for his carriage. These were all to be brought out of the country to London by easy journeys, the charge being allowed by his lordship; likewise one of his lordship's own servants, named Bryan Kelly, to ride on horseback with them, and to attend and defray all manner of reckonings and expenses. All which was done accordingly as follows.

"Winnington is a parish of Alderbury, near a place called the Welch Pool, eight miles from Shrewsbury; from whence he was carried to Wem, a town of the earl's aforeaid; and the next day to Shifnal, a manor-house of his lordship's, where they likewise stayed one night: from Shifnal they came to Wolverhampton, and the next day to Birmingham, and from thence to Coventry. Although Master Kelly had much to do to keep the people off, that pressed upon him in all places where he came, yet at Coventry he was most opprested, for they came in such multitudes to see the old man, that those that defended him were almost quite tired and spent, and the aged man in danger of being stifled; and, in a word, the rabble were so unruly, that Bryan was in doubt he should bring his charge no farther; so greedy are the vulgar to hearken to or gaze after novelties. The trouble being over, the next day they passed to Daintree, to Stony Stratford, to Radburne, and so to London; where he was well entertained and accommodated with all things, 'having all the aforeaid attendance at the sole charge and cost of his lordship.'" When brought before the king, his majesty, with more acuteness than good manners, said to him, "You have lived longer than other men, what have you done more than other men?" He answered, "I did penance when I was an hundred years old." This journey, however, proved fatal to him; owing to the alteration in his diet, to the change of the air, and his general mode of life, he lived but a very short time, dying the 5th of November. Parr. 1635 (A); and was buried in Westminster Abbey. After his death, his body was opened; and an account was drawn up by the celebrated Dr Harvey, part of which we shall lay before our readers.

"Thomas Parr was a poor countryman of Shropshire, whence he was brought up to London by the Right Hon. Thomas Earl of Arundel and Surrey; and died after he had outlived nine princes, in the tenth year of the tenth of them, at the age of 152 years and nine months.

"He had a large breast, lungs not fungous, but sticking to his ribs, and distended with blood; a liveliness in his face, as he had a difficulty of breathing a little before his death, and a long lasting warmth in his armpits and breast after it; which sign, together with others, were so evident in his body, as they use to be on those that die by suffocation. His heart was great, thick, fleshy, and fat. The blood in the heart thickish and diluted. The cartilages of the sternum not more bony than in others, but flexible and soft. His viscera were found and strong, especially the stomach; and it was observed of him, that he used to eat often by night and day, though contented with old cheese, milk, coarse bread, small beer, and whey; and, which is more remarkable, that he ate at midnight a little before he died. His kidneys were covered with fat, and pretty sound; only on the interior surface of them were found some aqueous or fleshy abscesses, whereof one was near the bigness of a hen egg, with a yellowish water in it, having made a roundish cavity, impressed on that kidney; whence some thought it came that a little before his death a suppression of urine had befallen him; though others were of opinion, that his urine was suppressed upon the regurgitation of all the ferocity into his lungs. Not the least appearance there was of any flaky matter either in the kidneys or bladder. His bowels were also found, a little whitish without. His spleen very little, hardly equalling the bigness of one kidney. In short, all his inward parts appeared so healthy, that if he had not changed his diet and air, he might perhaps have lived a good while longer. The cause of his death was imputed chiefly to the change of food and air; forasmuch as coming out of a clear, thin, and free air, he came into the thick air of London; and after a constant plain and homely country diet, he was taken into a splendid family, where he fed high and drank plentifully of the best wines, whereupon the natural functions of the parts of his body were overcharged, his lungs obstructed, and the habit of the whole body quite disordered; upon which there could not but ensue a dissolution. His brain was sound, entire, and firm; and though he had not the use of his eyes, nor much of his memory, several years before he died, yet he had his hearing and apprehension very well; and was able, even to the 150th year of his age, to do any husbandman's work, even threshing of corn."

The following summary of his life is copied from Oldys's MS. notes on Fuller's Worthies: Old Parr was born 1483; lived at home until 1500, at 17, when he went out to service. 1518, at 39, returned home from his master. 1522, at 39, spent four years on the remainder of his father's lease. 1543, at 60, ended the first lease he renewed of Mr Lewis Porter. 1563, at 80, married Jane, daughter of John Taylor, a maiden; by whom he had a son and a daughter, who both died very young. 1564, at 81, ended the second lease which he renewed of Mr John Porter. 1585, at 102, ended the third lease he had renewed of Mr Hugh Porter. 1588, at 105, did penance in Alderbury church, for lying with Katharine Milton, and getting her with child. 1595, at 112, he buried his wife Jane, after they had lived 32 years together. 1605, at 122, having lived 10 years a widower, he married Jane, widow of Anthony Adda, daughter of John Lloyd of Gilfells, in Montgomeryshire, who survived him. 1635, at 152, he died; after they had lived together 30 years, and after 50 years possession of his last lease. See Longevity.