ROCK BUSH-QUAIL 255 



Rock Bush-Quail. 



PerdicnJa arrjunda* Sinkadeh, Tamil. 



This, the only near relative of the last species, has been very 

 much mixed up with it ; the native name in Hindustani is the 

 same, though in Canarese it is distinguished as Kemp Loiogn, 

 and in Telngu as Laicunha. The wonder is that the birds 

 themselves have not got mixed up, especially as they sometimes 

 occur together ; if they inhabited separate areas altogether one 

 would be inclined to regard the present one as only a local race 

 of the other. In Hume's plate, as he points out, a female of the 

 jungle species does duty in the foreground (the standing bird) as 

 a representative of this one, and the plate is lettered for that 

 species. Yet there is a positive difference; in the present species 

 both webs of the pinion-quills are marked with buff, while such 

 markings are only on the outer web in the other. The differences 

 elsewhere are mostly comparative, as is usual in local races rather 

 than true species ; the rock bush -quail is larger, has the red of 

 the head much duller, and, in the cock, the barring of the under- 

 parts broader. The hen has the top of the throat whitish, and 

 a whitish abdomen, but both lack the eyebrow-stripe of white 

 found in the other kind. The rock bush-quail is not found in 

 Ceylon at all, and, though a Peninsular bird, is on the whole 

 differently distributed, since it is usually found on different 

 ground, the two species largely replacing each other; though, 

 as has been said above, they may at times be found together. 



The rock bush-quail is not so fond of cultivation or elevated 

 land, being more a bird of dry sandy plains or hillocks, where the 

 only vegetation is scanty scrub; it is, in fact, a bird of the open 

 wastes, though, as its name implies, it especially likes rocky 

 ground. Except for this choice of location, it is very like its 

 ally in all its ways ; occasionally takes to trees when disturbed, 

 and goes in the same coveys, which go off in the same sort of 

 feathered feii de joie when flushed. It affords fair sport when 

 worked with dogs among the low scrub, but is as dry eating as its 

 relative ; though, as Hume rather sarcastically admits, it will 



*asiutica on plate. 



