188 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



by running, or if that is impossible takes a short low flight and 

 settles on the ground again. Its alarm note is given by Gammie 

 as Jcoorchi, koorchi, Jcoorchi, while the challenge call is koor, koor 

 and the fighting note waak, loaak. The same drumming with 

 the wings as is indulged in by other kalijes is also performed by 

 this one, and the natives, apparently with reason, regard it as a 

 presage of rain. 



It is a very omnivorous bird, eating all sorts of insects, except 

 ants, which the natives told Gammie were refused by captive 

 birds ; beetle grubs and wild yams, and the fruits of the totney 

 and yellow raspberry, are favourite articles of food, and grain 

 of all sorts is readily devoured, with the shoots of nettles and 

 even ferns. The flesh is not very good, and the bird affords little 

 sport, being a great runner, and affecting cover so thick that 

 even a dog can do little in it. 



About Darjeeling it has been noticed to be very constant to 

 its roosting-trees and even keeps to the same bough, so that it is 

 easily located by its accumulated droppings. It generally goes 

 in pairs or only three or four together, and the cocks fight much 

 in the breeding season. 



Although in the higher parts of its range hard-set eggs have 

 been found at the end of July, at the other end of its zone, low 

 down, they may be laid in March, no one seems to have seen 

 any sort of a nest constructed, the eggs being laid in grass or 

 under cover of bush, fern, or rocks on the ground itself. Hume 

 never heard of more than ten eggs in a clutch, and their colour 

 varies from pale brown to pinkish cream-colour. 



Purple or Horsficld's Kalij. 



*GenncBus horsfieldi. Dorik, Assam. 



Like the last species, this bird has the native name Muthura, 

 and it is certainly allied to it, though more nearly to the next to 

 be mentioned. It differs from the three most typical kalijes in 

 having the underparts black with feathers of the ordinary rounded 



* Euplocamus on plate. 



