The Partridge is an unusual bird.  Her habits around child-rearing paint a thought-provoking picture about our attitude towards riches.

Jeremiah 17:9-11 – The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.  Who can understand it.  10 “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.”  11 Like a partridge that hatches eggs it did not lay are those who gain riches by unjust means.  When their lives are half gone, their riches will desert them, and in the end they will prove to be fools.

Here is an explanation about this bird from Lee’s Birdwatching Adventure Plus.  http://leesbird.com/2009/07/21/b-o-b-partridge-ii/

I could give more examples, but it is obvious that the Partridges are leaving their eggs in other nests. “They are brooding but not hatching.” She is trying to raise her chicks, but not in the proper way. That is what the verse is saying, that the Lord searches the heart and tests a person’s thinking. It is then applied to making money the wrong way (crooked) and then having it disappear and then he is a “fool’ in the end.  The verses in Jeremiah 17:10-11 are in the middle of a great passage about trusting in the LORD.  See also previous post about the Tree Planted In Water – Star Teacher.