#partridges

A Partridge and Quail Feathursday

Partridges and Quails are both galliform birds in the superfamily Phasianoidea. Here are wood-engraved illustrations and a chromolithograph of four of them from Animate Creation by the English natural history popularizer J. G. Wood (1827-1889), published in New York in three volumes by Selmar Hess in 1885.

Grey Partridge (Perdix perdix) -- the chromolithograph.

Red-legged Partridge (Alectoris rufa -- identified hers as Caccabis rubra)

Common Quail (Coturnix coturnix)

California Quail (Callipepla californica -- identified here as Lophortyx californica)

The wood engravings are after illustrations by the German wildlife artist Robert Kretschmer (1812-1872) and the chromolith is by the noted Boston lithographing firm L. Prang & Company.

Our copy of Animate Creation is a revised edition, adapted to American zoology by the American physician and zoologist Joseph B. Holder, of an earlier British publication by Wood first published in London by George Routledge as The Illustrated Natural History in 1853.

View more posts from this publication.

View more Feathursday posts.

They Say Partridges Sing Only For Forgotten Kings

Chapter Three: If Secrets Could Bribe a Sandgrous

In which the physicians rule out leprosy (provisionally), a baby sister arrives uninvited, and Cecilia purchases a viper for reasons nobody bothers to explain to her.

Cecilia watched the ships floating along the Lordemer, their sails catching the Mediterranean sun like vast parchment squares. This filthy sea, referred to as the immundum by some Poulains, made no secret of where its unpleasant nickname had come from: it reeked of shit and sewage that trickled down from the waste ducts; the colors swirling between gray-green and an almost brown. Cecilia always had to pinch her nose as she made the trek up here, even then it wasn’t enough to keep the rank stench out of her lungs. Some nights, she would have nightmares about falling into these murky waters; and in those dreams the sea would swallow her whole as she gagged on putrescence. Baldwin would never come out here, she was quite certain of that. She imagined his red face twisting into a disgusted expression at the sight of the pier, his dainty little princely nose wrinkling and scrunching up towards his furry eyebrows, the pale blonde hairs on his arm rising to fend off the foul odor. Denis had told her that no royal ever set foot in these parts unless they absolutely had to, and even still they’d have an entire legion of knights to shoo the beggars away. But here, at least on this side of Acre, where ships moored with sailors who spoke more languages than Cecilia could name, a child could blend into crowds without being noticed. This made it a fine enough place for people like her to escape to. The fortress had been most cloying since Baldwin’s accident. The poor lad had to be sequestered to his chambers while priests and physicians were summoned to tend to him. They brought with them their herbs and their scriptures and ate up much of what Denis’s larder had to offer. She wasn’t sure how long they would be staying for, nor how long the prince had to endure all this. But she did know that with their arrival came the rumors. And while Cecilia tried to avoid the gossip, it had spread across the fortress like a bad weed.

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Partridges in Schönbrunn Park

Artist: Johann Georg de Hamilton (Flemish, c. 1672-1737)

Date: 1732

Medium: Oil on canvas

"M&F Double Spurr'd Partridge (Perdix bicalcaratus)"

Indian Zoology; Second Edition. Translated from the Latin of Johann Reinhold Forster by John Aikin, M. D. Illustrated by Peter Mazell. 1790.

A partridge in a pear tree is a welcome gift- especially if you like eggs. The grey partridge lays the most eggs in a clutch of any species-- up to 20 at a time!

(Image: A grey partridge (Perdix perdix) by Tatiana Bulyonkova)

Kuropatwy / Kuropatwy na śniegu (Partridges / Partridges in the snow) by Józef Chełmoński, 1891:

propaganda: look how soft it is. look at the perspective. look at the snow. look at the partridges. i love them so much.

(also, according to the artist's daughter, before he painted this, he used to lie on the snow and watch partridges. which is very understandable but also a mood)

Ziemia (Earth) by Ferdynand Ruszczyc, 1898:

propaganda: in my opinion, it's a very powerful piece which glorifies and elevates the every-day hard work of people across millenia to a kind of mythical status - the plowman is depicted as the centre of the universe, right between the vast sky and the earth. his pose, with the raised arm, resembles an epic hero, but the title tells us: this scene is not unique, millions of men across time have done this, this IS the earth, the world. it's grand and universal but naturalistic at the same time