252 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



in quickness and alertness are compared to quails, like which 

 they freely run about. 



Both cocks and hens are found in the coveys, which number 

 up to a dozen. The cocks have no spurs, and nothing seems to 

 be recorded about their ways in nature when breeding, though it 

 is probable they break up into pairs at this time, and some 

 fighting may take place. In captivity they are not at all shy. 



The cock is, at any rate, devoted to his hen, and, as I 

 have seen myself in captive specimens, will feed her with tit- 

 bits after the manner of the common farmyard fowl. The 

 egg is known to be buff in colour. 



The food consists of seeds, berries, tender leaves, &c,, and 

 insects ; as to the quality of the birds themselves for table 

 nothing seems recorded. 



Ferruginous or Chestnut Wood-Partridge. 



Galoperdix oculea. Burong trung, ]\Ialay. 



This pretty bird approaches the typical partridges in shape 

 more than the hill-partridges do, and its bright, chestnut plumage 

 is very distinctive and marks it out from any other found with us ; 

 on the sides and lower back the chestnut is diversified by black 

 markings, which in the latter region indeed obscure the red ; 

 the upper back is variegated with black and white. The only 

 sex difference is the presence of spurs on the legs of the male ; 

 the legs themselves are green. As in so many of our game- 

 birds, more than one spur may be present. 



Like the red-crested wood-partridge this is a Malayan bird, 

 gaining a place in the Indian list by penetrating into South 

 Tenasserira ; but it does not range further east than Sumatra 

 in the other direction. It is a lover of heavy jungle, where it 

 feeds on berries, seeds, and insects ; but the places where Mr. 

 Hume's collectors found it were so lonely that there were no 

 inhabitants, and no paths except those made by the local big 

 game ; and they never even saw the birds they got until they 

 were caught. Even the Malays knew nothing about it, so that 

 this, one of our handsomest small game-birds, remains eminently 



