218 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



weighing a little over the pound ; while the hen, being brown 

 all over, would certainly be called a partridge by anyone who 

 did not know her mate. Her bright red legs and red eye-patch, 

 which she has in common with the cock, are distinctive points, 

 as also is the fine pencilling of black over the brown plumage, 

 which has no striking markings. 



Young cocks are said to assume a duller edition of the 

 masculine plumage when half-grown ; they have no spurs, but 

 their elders are most plentifully provided in that respect, and 

 may have up to nine spurs on the two legs. 



The Bhutias, who call the bird So7ne or Semo, credit it 

 with growing a new spur every year, but this is at least doubtful, 

 and the bird is so rarely kept in captivity that opportunities for 

 observation have been wanting. One pair reached the London 

 Zoo a few years back, and I was struck with their essentially 

 partridge-like appearance. Their importer, Mr. W. Frost, told 

 me that they were spiteful with other birds, and backed each 

 other up, the hen waiting on an elevated spot till the cock ran a 

 bird under her, when she would spring on i't and do her share of 

 the mauling. 



That the bird should be seldom kept alive is not remarkable, 

 for it is not often even shot ; it is purely Himalayan — though 

 very similar species occur outside our limits— and always keeps 

 high up near the snows, but affects cover, not open rocky spots 

 like the snow-partridge. Pine forests and mountain bamboo 

 clumps are favourite haunts, and here the birds scratch for food 

 like fowls, and are nearly equally omnivorous in their tastes. 

 But, like most of our game-birds, they specialize somewhat in 

 food ; they do not eat bulbs, and do eat pine tops and juniper 

 berries, especially in winter and spring, for they remain all the 

 year at high elevations. As they do not range lower than 10,000 

 feet, their haunts are liable to be snowed up, but in addition to 

 the food they get from the conifers, they seem to burrow in the 

 snow for either subsistence or shelter ; for they have been taken 

 at 12,000 feet in January. 



They perch freely at all times when alarmed, but fly little 

 and generally run to cover when startled ; the alarm-note is 

 "ship, ship,'" and a scattered covey is piped together by a long 



