232 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS 



they are even three parts grown, and this is put down to persecu- 

 tion by vermin, which are allowed to work their will unchecked 

 in India. Proper game preservation and due consideration in 

 shooting — it might be as well to limit the bag to the easily 

 distinguishable cocks — ought to make this bird as abundant 

 as our home partridge in all suitable localities. 



The nest is very well hidden in crops or tamarisk or grass 

 Jungle, and is of the usual partridge type — a scrape and a wisp ; 

 the eggs, most often laid towards the end of June, are glossy and 

 spotless, and are of a stone or fawn tint tinged with green or 

 brown. It would very likely be a good plan to put some of these 

 eggs in the nests of the grey partridge, removing the original ones, 

 and see if this hardy but less valuable bird would rear the young 

 of its betters, as this plan has often succeeded with game and 

 other birds; but to find nests of the black partridge the aid 

 of a good dog is very often requisite. 



Painted Partridge. 



Francolinus pictus. Kakhera kodi, Telugu. 



From the usual use of the word " painted " in characterizing 

 birds, one would expect this species to be at least as handsome 

 as the black, its near ally, which indeed is also called Kala titar 

 by the Mahrattas ; but as a matter of fact it is not nearly so 

 showy a bird, wanting the white cheeks and chestnut collar, 

 though the face and throat are chestnut, and having the white 

 spotting below so developed at the expense of the black back- 

 ground that the general effect is light below variegated with dark, 

 and the bird on the whole is rather more like the hen black 

 partridge than the cock, though much purer in its colours. 



The hen of the present species is much like her mate — who 

 has no spurs — but may be distinguished by the throat being white, 

 not chestnut like the cheeks, and by the light barring on the 

 lower back being coarse and buff, as in the similar marking in the 

 hen black partridge ; in the cocks the rump-pencilling is narrow 

 and pure white in both kinds. That the birds are closely 

 related they themselves recognize, for cross-pairing takes place 



