THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW GAME-BIRD INTO ESSEX. 103
within reasonable limits, I would certainly not advocate, as some
landowners do, an attempt to exterminate them by destroying every
nest that is found. The pursuit of the red-legged partridge, whether
by shooting over dogs in rough ground and large fields of roots, or
by systematic "driving," calls forth as much energy and skill on the
part of the sportsman as is required to circumvent any other game-
bird in this country: on this account, therefore, it is well worth
preservation. The list of English game-birds is not so full that we
can afford to dispense with it.
Many years after the naturalization of the Red-legged Partridge,
attempts were made to introduce another game-bird into this country,
namely, the so-called American partridge, better known as the
Virginian Colin, Ortyx virginianus. Numbers of this handsome
little bird have been liberated in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Northampton-
shire, but being bad sitters, and liable to desert their nests if dis-
turbed, they have not answered the expectations formed of them,
nor increased to the extent expected. I have not heard of any being
purposely introduced into Essex, although it is not unlikely that
wanderers from other centres of dispersal may have been shot in the
county.
The latest attempt to introduce a new game-bird to English
sportsmen has been made by Mr. John Bateman, of Brightlingsea, in
this county, and the result of his experiment deserves wider recogni-
tion than it has met with. In this case the bird selected hails from
South America, where it is known to English colonists and to Spanish-
speaking sportsmen as Perdiz grande—the big partridge—to dis-
tinguish it from smaller species of the family to which it belongs.
The term "partridge," however, is a misnomer, there being no true
partridges, nor pheasants either, in South America. The Italian
settlers on the River Plate call it Martineto. The native name for
the bird in French Guiana is Tinamu, or to adopt the less correct
French spelling, as given by Temminck, Tinamou,3 the Latinised
form for the generic name being Tinamus, and the specific name
rufescens, from the rufous colouring of its plumage.
The name Tinamu, according to Professor Newton, first appears
in print in Barrere, "Histoire Naturelle de la France Equinoxiale"
(page 138), published in Paris in 1741, whence, in 1778, it was
adopted by Buffon "Hist. Nat. des Oiseaux" (tome iv., page 502),
3 No Spanish or Spanish-American word ever ends in ou ; the u in South America has the sound
of oo in English.