240 INDIAN SPOKTING BIRDS 



and the blotch of black, coalescing from black bars, on the part 

 where the well-known horseshoe mark comes in the home 

 partridge, when present. The weight of the Tibetan bird is a 

 pound, and, like the home bird, it is excellent for the table. 

 How it gets into good condition is rather a puzzle, for, according 

 to Hume, its environment, like that of the snow partridge, which 

 keeps fat on next to nothing, is not luxurious. He says, " The 

 entire aspect of the hillside where these birds were found was 

 dreary and desolate to a degree, no grass, no bushes, only here and 

 there, fed by the melting snow above, little patches and streaks 

 of mossy herbage, on which I suppose the birds must have 

 been feeding." Prjevalsky, however, found the nearly allied race, 

 Perdix sifanica, in rather less miserable surroundings in Alpine 

 Kansu, where it inhabited rhododendron thickets. In Tibet its 

 western limit seemed to be the Changchenmo valley ; those 

 found in our territory are derived apparently from the Chinese 

 portion of Tibet, occurring in Kumaun and British Garhwal. 



It has been found breeding near the Pangong lake, on 

 ground where for 100 miles there was not even brushwood to 

 break the monotony of rocky barrenness, and on the Oong 

 Lung La Pass, leading from that lake valley to the Indus valley 

 at an elevation of 16,430 feet, in this case among grass and low 

 bushes. Ten eggs were in the clutch, but Prjevalsky says the 

 Kansu bird lays fifteen. The Tibetan-taken egg which Hume 

 obtained was of a glossy uniform drab, pale, but slightly tinged 

 at each end, especially the larger, with reddish brown. 



Snow-Partridge. 



Lerwa nivicola. Barf-ka-titar, Hindustani. 



When high up after mountain sheep and goats, on rocky 

 ground near the snow line, one may start a covey of dark birds 

 with conspicuous white patches on their wings, which spin away 

 with grouse-like flight— evidently partridges of some kind, for 

 there are no true grouse anywhere in India even in these 

 Himalayan heights. These alpine partridges, the Leriva of the 

 Bhutanese, would be recognizable even if they lived among 

 others, for their closely cross-pencilled plumage with chocolate 



