COMMON QUAIL 263 



will run some distance. When winged, they are easily lost, 

 as they hide adroitly, and will readily " go to ground " in any 

 hole. 



When at ease their note is a low whistling chirp, but is 

 harsher when they are forced to rise, and the male's spring call 

 is very distinct, a loud clear trisyllable, of which many render- 

 ings exist. Mr. E. Kay Kobinson's "Dick, be quick" expresses 

 it best to my ear. Although possessed of but a small bill and 

 devoid of spurs, the cock is intensely quarrelsome, and quail- 

 fighting is as popular a sport in India now as it used to be in 

 ancient Greece. This quail is a very prolific bird, laying as 

 many as fourteen eggs, bat such as breed in India do not appear 

 to l&y over ten ; the nest is made of a little grass, of course on 

 the ground, for, like all typical quails, this species never even 

 perches. The eggs are very distinctive in appearance ; they are 

 large considering the number laid, measuring more than an inch 

 in the long diameter, and are marked, generally heavily, with 

 chocolate on cream colour. Such quail as breed here lay in 

 March and April, but these are, no doubt, usually "pricked" birds, 

 though in 1872 these quail bred freely about Nowshera, probably 

 influenced by the backward season of that year; but there appears 

 no general tendency in Asiatic common quail to become residents, 

 as they often do in some other countries, notably Spain and 

 Ireland. Probably the competition of other birds of similar 

 type is the deterrent to their colonization of India, for the strong 

 point of the species appears to be the power of flight which 

 enables it to occupy ground which other birds of the family 

 can never reach. 



The many names of this bird probably mean " quail " in 

 general in most cases — Butairo in Sind and Batri in Bengali 

 recall the Hindustani name ; Biir-ganja and Gur-ganj are used 

 at Poona, and Burll at Belgaum, while in Tamil and Canarese 

 the names are Peria-ka-deh and Sipale liaki, the Telugu name 

 being Gogari-yellachi. Botah Surrai is the Assamese name, and 

 Soibol in Manipur, while the Uriyas use Gundri. When 

 mentioned specifically the species is distinguished in Hindustani 

 as Gagus or Burra Bater. 



