6 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



" approached to within about eight yards of me, assuming the 

 "most threatening attitude. 



•' This continued for a moment or two, until all the chicks 



" had hidden in the grass, whereupon both old birds began to 



" walk away, calling all the time to the chicks." 



If the eggs are at all incubated, the hen birds sits very close, 



and may be nearly trodden or before she will rise. In such cases, 



she gets oft" her nest with a good deal of fluster and noise, but 



usually the birds sneak off" very stealthily. 



The number of eggs in a ifull clutch seems to be anything from 

 eight to fourteen, most often ten or eleven. Hume found thirteen 

 in one nest. Adams says thej lay from nine to twelve, and 

 Wilson says nine to fourteen, and Whymper took clutches with 

 from eight to eleven eggs in Garhwal. 



In appearance the eggs are just like small hens' eggs varying in 

 colour from a pale creamy white to a pale stone or brown, sometimes 

 with a faint chocolate or creamy tint in it. They are never of the 

 rich, warm cafe-au-lait tint so often found in the f^ggs of the 

 Jungle-Fowl and the Kalij Phesants, and, on the other hand, most 

 eggs have the faintest tinge of olive-green in them, hardly dis- 

 cernible unless placed against other eggs, 



Frequentlj" the eggs are spotted and speckled with brown, and, 

 curiously, these spots seem to be nearly always at the small end. 

 This is the case in four out of the only six eggs I have in my 

 collection, in the majority of those in the British Museum and at 

 Tring and again in Mr. S. L. "Whymper's collections. As a rule 

 these spots and specks are scanty and poorly coloured, but 1 have 

 one egg which is quite richly blotched with rich brown at the 

 small end. 



In shape they are the same as hens' eggs, occasionally rather 

 drawn out, but never a peg-top shape like those of the true 

 Phasianus group. The texture is hard, close and strong with a 

 fair gloss. 



Thirty eggs vary in length from 49-9 mm. to 57-1 mm., and in 

 breadth from 36-5 mm. to 4.0-6 mm. The average is 53-3 mm. 

 by 38-7 mm. 



General Hahits. — The Cheer may be found at any altitude 

 between 4,000 feet in the cold weather, and 10,000 feet or more 

 in the summer, but as a rule keep between about 6,000 feet and 

 9,000 feet. They haunt the wildest of country, and though not 

 found above the forest level they are not birds of heavy forest, but 

 rather of the scanty forest and thick grass and undergrowth which 

 grow on the more precipitous hills and cliff" sides. According to 

 various authors and writers, they seem to go about in flocks of any 

 thing from half a dozen to a dozen or more, probably only the 

 family party of the last hatching. They do not keep very close 



