2 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XIX. 



remainder of the upper parts is also much greyer and the black mark- 

 ings, which are confined to the basal half of the feathers are hidden. 

 Total length about G-3 inches : wing 3*25 ; tail 2*0 ; tarsus 1*0. 

 Habitat. — Goalpara, Assam. 



This interesting new geographical form was first procured at Goal- 

 para in the Brahmaputra Valley by Mr. C. M. Inglis who forwarded 

 specimens to the Bombay Natural History Society together with a 

 drawing. Mr. Inglis rightly believed the birds to belong to an unde- 

 scribed form distinct from M. manipurensis and on this account Mr. 

 W. S. Millard submitted the birds to me for examination and for com- 

 parison with the types of M. manipurensis (Hume). In the British 

 Museum there is a ragged skin of a female microperdix which was 

 received in 1893 from the Calcutta Museum and said to have been pro- 

 cured in Bhutan Doars. This bird is no doubt referable to M. inglisi. 

 Field Notes on MICROPERDIX INGLISI, by C, M, Inglis. 

 Whilst staying with my friend Mr. A. M. Primrose at Mornai Tea Estate in 

 the Groalpai-a District of Assam, I had several opportunities of studying these 

 birds and the following notes are compiled from my own observations and also 

 from those of Mr. Primrose who kindly allowed me to use his notes. We 

 identified the bird as Hume's Bush-Quail, but on my sending a sketch home 

 Mr. Ogilive Grant said he expected it was a new species, and on my sending a 

 series of skins they confirmed his opinion and he has paid me the compliment of 

 naming it after me. 



This Quail is, if anything, the commonest quail got in that garden, but on 

 account of the nature of the jungle it frequents it is seldom seen and difficult to 

 get. They are found in damp, dense ekra jungle which grows in the nullahs and 

 when these get inundated during the rains they move into higher pieces of eki-a 

 and also into the sungrass. We have never seen them on absolutely dry ground 

 except when feeding, at other times they keep exclusively to the damp nullahs. 

 Our observations are mainly confined to the cold weather and up to April as 

 after that the jungle is too heavy to walk through or have beaten. They are 

 excessively local birds, only certain patches of jungle holding them and they 

 frequent the same spot year after year. Although there may be, what appears 

 to us, identical patches of ekra in the same nullahs and which one would think 

 should contain these quail still none will be found in them. One very soon gets 

 to know which patches are worth beating and which not. Many of these bu'ds 

 must get destroyed in the fierce grass fires which rage in that part of Assam 

 during the early part of the year. A good method of getting these birds is as 

 follows : — 



A day or two before the beat takes place, burn patches in the nullah leaving 

 those which contain the birds. This has to be done carefully. This thinning 



