154 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



Habits. — According to Mr. Hume, " moderately thick forests 

 and jungles, hills, ravines, and broken ground, not too deficient 

 in cover, and rich cultivation, if not in too damp and undrained 

 situations, from near the sea-level to an elevation of four to five 

 thousand feet, are the ordinary resorts of the Jungle Bush- 

 Quail. Very considerable differences in rainfall affect them 

 but little, provided the ground is hilly, raviny, or well drained, 

 and cover sufficient, and they are abundant, as on the Western 

 Ghats, where the rainfall is over loo inches, and on scrub-clad 

 hills in Rajputana, where it certainly falls short of 20 inches." 

 Tickell says : " They prefer stony, gravelly places, amongst 

 thorny bushes, such as the jujube or ber, or tracts of stunted 

 Sal, Assun, and Polas (or Dhak), congregating in coveys of 

 eight to a dozen under thickets, whence of an evening they 

 emerge into adjacent fields, meadows, and clumps of grass to 

 feed. They lie very close, suffering themselves to be almost 

 trodden upon, and then rise at once out of some small bush, 

 with a piping whistle, and such a sudden start and whir, 

 instantly flying off to all parts of the compass — including some- 

 times a close shave of the sportsman's countenance, — that a 

 more difficult bird to hit could nowhere be found, especially 

 as their flight is prodigiously rapid, and directed so as barely 

 to skim the upper twigs of the bushes. They do not go far, 

 but, when once down, are hardly ever flushed again till they 

 have reunited. This they lose as little time as possible in 

 doing, running like mice through the herbage to some central 

 spot, where the oldest cock bird of the covey is piping all 

 hands together. Although so gregarious and sociable, these 

 birds are very quarrelsome, and their extreme pugnacity leads 



to their easy capture Bush-Quails are not often 



caught by hawking, as the Uriyas do not care to trust their 

 trained sparrow-hawks (shickras and besras) so much amongst 

 the jungle. For the table they are hard and tasteless, and they 

 are valued by the natives chiefly for their fighting qualities, which 

 do not appear to degenerate even after long confinement." 



