106 THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW GAME-BIRD INTO ESSEX.
thrown by the hand, the bird goes gradually sloping towards the earth, the dis-
tance it is able to accomplish at a flight being 1,500 to 2000 yards. This flight
it can repeat when driven up again as many as three times, after which it will
rise no more. The call of Perdiz grande is heard at all seasons of the year ; on
pleasant days, and invariably near sunset, it is uttered while the bird sits con-
cealed in the grass, many individuals answering each other : for although I call
the Perdiz grande a solitary bird (they are rarely seen in company), several
individuals are mostly found living near each other. The song or call is composed
of five or six long notes, with a mellow flute-like sound, and so impressively
uttered and sweetly modulated, that it is perhaps the sweetest bird music heard in
the Pampas. It lays five large and almost round eggs of a dark wine purple
colour."
The same writer, elsewhere referring to the development of instinct
in young birds ("The Field," Oct. 9th, 1886), says:
"As we might have expected, the faculties and instincts of the young of this
species mature at a very early period ; when extremely small, they abandon their
parents to shift for themselves in solitude ; and when not more than one fourth
the size they eventually attain, they acquire the adult plumage and are able to
fly as well as an old bird. I observed a young bird of this species, less than a
quail in size, at a house on the Pampas, and was told that it had been taken
from the nest when just breaking the shell; it had therefore, never seen or heard
the parent birds. Yet this small chick, every day at the approach of evening,
would retire to the darkest corner of the dining-room, and, concealed under a
piece of furniture, would continue uttering its evening song for an hour or more
at short intervals, and rendering it so perfectly that I was greatly surprised to
hear it; for a thrush or other songster at the same period of life, when attempt-
ing to sing, only produces a chirping sound."
In April 1883, Mr. Bateman, of Brightlingsea, imported half-a-dozen
of these birds from Buenos Ayres, and placed them in an aviary.
Unfortunately in the following June a dog got in and killed four;
but not before 30 eggs had been laid. These produced some 20
chicks, half of which survived all dangers, of which the chief was
being trampled under foot by their foster-mothers, the Essex hens.
In 1884 the stock still in confinement stood at thirteen head (namely,
two of the original lot, and eleven reared), with a few at large in the
parish. A friend at Buenos Ayres then forwarded three more, and
three others were purchased from the Zoological Gardens. After this
addition to the stock, eleven birds were turned out on Brightlingsea
Marshes in April, 1885, and, with fourteen reared in confinement,
increased to about fifty or sixty. During the spring and early
summer of 1885, the musical notes of these birds might be heard in
Brightlingsea and parts of Thorington. Mr. Bateman likens the
notes of the cock bird to Ti-a-u-u-u, and those of the hen to Ti-a-u.
He says the bird might be easily mistaken for a hen pheasant were it