220 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



striking black-and-white colouring of his head, and of the 

 feathers under the tail. Both have red bills, brightest in the 

 cock ; but in some apparently the legs and bill may be yellow, 

 as in the first recorded specimens, which were in the Earl of 

 Derby's private zoo in 1846. 



It was not certain that these came from India, but nobody 

 has found the bird anywhere else ; and even there it has only 

 rarely turned up, always in the hills, and generally in winter. 

 Less than a dozen specimens, in fact, are on record, and all these 

 have been got near Mussoorie or Naini Tal. Hume suggested 

 that they may have come " from the better-wooded south- 

 eastern portions of Chinese Tibet," which little-known region 

 might certainly furnish novelties. But the bird does not look at 

 all a wanderer ; its wings are small even for a bird of this family, 

 none of which have pinions adapted for lengthened flight. The 

 common grey quail is the best provided in this respect, and that 

 has wings of four inches or more from the pinion to the tip — 

 the usual way of measuring a bird's wing, as it can be done in a 

 skin made up as usual with closed wings ; the mountain quail, 

 although larger than the common quail, shows a wing of barely 

 more than three-and-a-half inches measured in this way. 



It may be that the birds obtained represent some of the last 

 survivors of a declining species ; such species must always be in 

 existence, and may no doubt disappear without record, for 

 extinction of course goes on, as it did before the advent of man 

 with his much-abused destructive habits, from natural causes. 



In the Naini Tal Tarai, for instance, there exists a large 

 weaver bird or baya, the Ploceus megarhijnchus of Hume, of 

 which very few specimens have ever been obtained ; yet this is 

 the brightest-coloured as well as the largest of the Indian bayas, 

 the cock in breeding-dress being nearly all yellow, on the throat 

 and belly as well as the breast and cap. This may be a declining 

 form ; but against the theory of imminent extinction in the case 

 of the mountain quail, and in favour of that of migration, may 

 be set the dates of the latter bird's occurrence, which are almost 

 all in the winter months. Thus it has occurred near Mussoorie 

 in November, 1865, and close to Naini Tal in December, 1876. 

 In November, 1867, however, a number appeared at Jerepani, 



