Integrating Excel and Access

Colophon

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The animals on the cover of Integrating Excel and Access are common partridges (perdix cinerea or perdix perdix), one of several species known collectively as the gray partridge. A non-migratory game bird native to Europe, the gray partridge was introduced to North America when its numbers in Europe began to decline, and it is now common in the northern United States and southern Canada. The decline of the gray partridge in Europe is thought to be due to changes in European agricultural practices, such as the use of herbicides, rather than to overenthusiastic hunters.

The gray partridge is a round, plump bird usually between a foot and a foot and a half long. The male has a mottled plumage of gray and brown, highlighted by a cinnamon-red face and throat and a distinctive horeshoe-shaped, chestnut-colored mark on his belly. The female looks similar but is duller in color, and her horseshoe patch may be lighter or smaller than the male's, or it may not show up at all. Once known simply as "the partridge," their name changed when the red-legged partridge became common—the "gray" was then added due to the color of their legs.

Gray partridges live mainly on farmland and feed on grass and seeds, although chicks eat insects for the first ...