The phrase 'a partridge in a pear-tree' is a corruption of the Latin words 'apertuit in aperto', which mean 'she gave birth in the open'...ie in an exposed place, the stable. When medi�val monks chanted these words in church, the native peasantry in the congregation misheard them as the phrase we are now familiar with. There is, therefore, no real 'symbolism' involved at all.