The largest number of these birds could be taken at migration times with what were called "throw sticks." After the birds were nesting or raising young, the greatest havoc could be wrought among them with nets or by using a bird of the species as a decoy, as is described in the first chapter of this book. It is this decoy method of taking birds which is used in comparison in Ecclesiasticus: "As a decoy partridge in a cage, So is the heart of a proud man." The other reference to partridges used to cause commentators much trouble, because the old version read, "As the partridge sitteth 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." That was explained in several different ways, all of which neglected the obvious fact that the eggs of the partridge are splendid food; indeed, no other equals them. I am sorry that I know so well, but when I was a child no one ever heard of bird protection. We instinctively shielded songsters and little helpless creatures, but quail and partridges were very numerous, and we ate both the birds and eggs. When we found a nest, with a long stick we always raked out one egg, and if it had not been brooded yet, we ate those remaining. No other egg I ever tasted nearly equals them. But we did not discover this ourselves. The knowledge of the delicacy of quail eggs came across the sea with our ancestors, and they learned it from the south of Europe, and these lands had it from Africa, the home of the quail. So that passage merely means that a partridge sits on a large nest ful of eggs while she deposits them, but she is not always allowed to brood, and raise her young, because her eggs disappear. If they escape man, there are all the native egg eaters of the wild. The new version of this text accepts as correct one of the explanations which was offered to make clear the first form of these lines, "that the partridge hatched the eggs of other birds, and so gathered young which she had not brought forth." So the lines are made to read, "As the partridge hath gathered young which she hath not brought forth, so is he that gathercth riches and not by right." I know that what we call domestic fowl will brood upon any egg that is placed under them: pea hen, duck, goose, turkey, and once I set a hen on chicken hawk eggs. Also wild birds brood for the cuckoo and the cowbird, but I have had experience with thousands of bird nests and brooding birds, and never yet have I found the egg of any other in the nest of a partridge. It is almost an impossibility. These birds build on the ground, in a tuft of grass, and deposit one egg each day until they have finished. With each egg they cover the nest very securely, and leave it until they are ready to brood, and then they sit closely, the male taking the place of the female while she goes each day for food and drink. There is just one possibility that this new version is right. Where these birds are so numerous as they were in Bible lands, and the parents were leaving the nest followed by from sixteen to twenty young, it appears very plausible that broods frequently might meet and intermingle, and the young become confused and follow the wrong mother. In this manner a partridge could "gather" several young she "had not brought forth:" for the little birds are identical, and the old ones also. Thus stragglers of a brood might possibly become tired, and attach themselves to the next family coming their way when they were very young. When a little older, the nestlings distinguished the voice of the mother, for these birds had a melodious cry or whistle, as have our own. Not similar notes, but mellow, clear, sweet-toned calls. |