THE SPUR-FOWL. 207 



species, that at present I can make nothing of the question. 

 Both species seem to me to affect almost the same localities, 

 and to have exactly the same habits, to be in fact complemental 

 species, like the Red and Grey Jungle Fowl, or the Black and 

 Painted Partridges, &c., and the way in which they seem to 

 overlap each other's areas of distribution by many hundreds 

 of miles is therefore most inexplicable. I need scarcely add 

 that this species is essentially Indian, and occurs nowhere out 

 of India. 



Habits. — " The Red Spur-Fowl ranges from nearly sea-level to 

 an elevation at Abu, the Pulneys, and the Nilgiris of 4,000 to 

 5,000 feet ; indeed, on the latter it has been shot at over 7,500 

 feet. It is essentially a bird of forests and jungle, on hilly and 

 broken land. It is unsafe to generalise from one's own limited 

 personal experience, but I have the impression that the Red 

 Spur-Fowl goes in more for forests and earth, and that the 

 Painted one more affects scrub-jungle and rocks. You rarely, 

 if ever, find the Red, you constantly find the Painted, Spur- 

 Fowl in very rocky ground." {A. O. Hume.) 



The late Mr. Davison, who was familiar with the species in 

 the Nilgiris, says : " It seems to affect by preference dense and 

 thorny cover in the vicinity of cultivation, but is also found 

 in small isolated patches of jungle or sholas, and along the 

 outskirts of the larger forests. It is perhaps found more 

 numerously on the lower portions of the northern and west- 

 ern slopes of the Nilgiris. 



" Though," as Dr. Jerdon remarks, " two or three Spur- Fowl 

 usually form part of a day's bag on the Nilgiris, they are by no 

 means easy birds to obtain ; for without dogs it is almost im- 

 possible to flush them, and I have often observed that, even 

 with dogs, they will run before these, till they come to some 

 dense thorny bush, when they will silently fly up out of reach, 

 and hide themselves in the thickest part, and once so con- 

 cealed, it is almost impossible to flush them without cutting 

 the bush to pieces. When flushed they rise with a cackle, and 



