CHUKOR 237 



usual. The cocks fight furiously in the breeding season, and are 

 often kept by natives as fighting birds. 



In high desert places they are very wild if they have been 

 at all shot at, and give hardly any sport, but in the lower 

 Himalayan hills they are far more easily accounted for, though 

 they have the " Frenchman's " trick of running. They fly 

 more strongly and sharply than our common partridges, and 

 come downhill at a great pace if pushed up by dogs ; but they 

 do not like rising after one good flight, and in such a case will often 

 lie well when walked up. The native name, universally adopted 

 by Europeans, is simply the bird's call, and it is very liberal with 

 its note, especially when a covey has been scattered. The food 

 of chukor consists of grain and other seeds, and often of insects ; 

 they also take much gravel for digestive purposes. Old birds are 

 dry and tough, but young ones good in autumn if hung ; they 

 may be distinguished by having black instead of red bills. 



Chukor breed at any height in the Himalayas over 4,000 feet ; 

 in the Punjab Salt Kange and the lower Himalayas they lay in 

 April, but higher up the nesting may be deferred till three months 

 later. The nest may be a mere scratching, or a pad of grass and 

 leaves, and contain as many as fourteen eggs, or as few as half 

 that number ; they are yellowish white, peppered or spotted with 

 brown, much like the eggs of the French partridge, in fact, as 

 one would expect. Outside India the chukor is found in Tibet 

 and the Thian-shan range, and east to China, west to Aden in 

 one direction and Cyprus in the other ; while the so-called 

 Greek partridge (Caccabis saxatilis) of Eastern Europe only 

 differs by having the face with a little more black, reaching to 

 the corner of the mouth, in the eastern bird there is merely 

 a continuation of the necklace beyond the eye up to the 

 nostrils. The difference is unimportant, and the two birds are 

 obviously races of one species ; while in the really distinct west 

 European, French partridge [Gaccahis rufa) there is the definite 

 distinction of a fringe of black spots outside the necklace-band. 



