PARTRIDGE (קֹרֵא֒, H7926, partridge, all Eng. VSS; from call cok cok cokrr; cf. chukor, a closely related partridge from SW Asia). Two species are found in Pal. (1) Rock partridge (Alectoris graeca), which lives in a wide range of country from the coastal plains to the dry hills of Judea and the mountains of Lebanon. It is similar in size and appearance to the closely related Red-legged partridge (Alectoris rufa), a native of SW Europe that has been widely introduced to other parts of Europe and into N America. The white cheeks, bordered with black, and the strikingly barred flanks make it easily recognizable. It is about fourteen inches long. (2) Desert partridge (Ammoperdix heyi), which is half the size and found only in the rocky regions around the Dead Sea and in the Negev and Sinai deserts. It is plentiful around such oases as Ein Gedi. Living in bare country with little cover, it is sandy-colored and very hard to see when it squats.

Both kinds are more often heard than seen. They are reluctant to fly, and run fast until forced to get up; they then drop into the next available bit of cover. This habit is reflected in the first of the only two Biblical references to “partridge.” “Like one who hunts a partridge in the mountains” (1 Sam 26:20), so David described Saul pursuing him from one hiding place to another. The words were spoken near Ein Gedi but are equally applicable to both partridges. The only other direct mention is in Jeremiah 17:11, a fig. passage quoting a curious natural history belief, “As the partridge that sitteth on eggs which she hath not laid, so is he that getteth riches, and not by right” (ASV). This is given in more detail by the Arab. historian al Damir (see Bochart and Rosenmüller, Hierozoicon, II, 85). The mother bird is said to remove eggs from another nest and incubate them only to find that the birds return to their own mother when reared. There may be some basis for the story, though the deduction is prob. wrong. Arabs today believe that the hen lays in two separate nests, one of which is looked after by the cock, and there is some evidence that this may also be true of the Red-legged partridge.

The partridge’s name is seen in the place El hakkore—the spring of him who cried (Judg 15:19)—and a person Kore, the crier (1 Chron 9:19). Game birds are universally regarded as good eating, and it is presumed that partridges were among the birds taken in “the snare of the fowler” (Ps 91:3, etc.).

Bibliography G. R. Driver, PEQ (1955), 132; P. Arnold, Birds of Israel (1962).