254 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



sort it must have. Altliongb a ground bird, it will take to trees 

 if put up by dogs, like the grey partridge, and it also has the 

 partridge habit of sociability carried to an extreme, for, though 

 sometimes found in pairs in the breeding-season, it is usually 

 found in coveys, even up to a score in number, which pack very 

 closely, and forage about together like a flock of guinea-fowls in 

 miniature. 



This extreme sociability, which, as in the great snow-cocks, 

 extends so far that young ones may be seen in company with 

 several of their elders, makes it strange that the birds should be 

 so pugnacious, but probably the ties of friendship only hold for 

 the same covey, which are mostly, no doubt, near relatives. 

 Strangers are probably barred by flocking birds as well as solitary 

 ones ; and in the case of another well-known social bird, the rat- 

 bird or common babbler {Argya caudata), two flocks working the 

 same hedge have been seen to meet and fight with such fury that 

 they adjourned to the road to fight out the matter in couples. 

 Be that as it may, this bush-quail is commonly captured by 

 means of a decoy-bird in a cage set with nooses, like the grey 

 partridge ; for more sporting methods of capture it is not of 

 nmch use, despite a remarkably tame disposition, for when 

 pressed the whole covey explodes, as it were, in all directions, 

 whistling and whirring — including sometimes, as Tickell says, a 

 close shave of the sportsman's countenance — and each member 

 drops as suddenly as it rose after just shaving the bushes in a 

 very swift flight of a couple of dozen yards, rapidly reassembling 

 to the peculiar trilling pipe of the head of the covey. When 

 bagged bush-quail are not much to boast of, weighing little over 

 two ounces, and being very dry. They feed chiefly on seeds of 

 grass and millet, and are pretty certain to be found in ragi 

 stubble ; insects are also often consumed. 



They breed very late in the year, beginning in September, 

 and eggs may bo taken in February ; the nest is under a tuft of 

 grass or a bush, and fairly neatly made, and the eggs pale creamy 

 and as few as four or as many as seven in number. 



