266 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS 



all the eggs in a set, which does not exceed nine, unless two 

 hens lay in one nest, as often happens, are usually much of the 

 same type. The cock, which feeds the hen during courtship, 

 keeps close at hand during incuhation. The very scanty nest 

 is placed among crops or moderately high grass. The main 

 breeding-ground of this species in India is in the Deccan, 

 Guzerat, and Central India ; it appears to be much persecuted 

 by vermin, for where the birds are breeding freely an enormous 

 number of broken-up nests are to be found. 



Painted Quail. 



Excalf actor ia chinensis. Khair-hutai, Nepalese. 



Only about the size of a sparrow, the painted quail is not 

 likely to be mistaken for any of our game birds, except perhaps 

 the even tinier little button-quail, from which the darker colour 

 will distinguish it on the wing, and the yellow, four-toed feet in 

 the hand ; it is quite a sporting bird, too, and when flushed flies 

 for fifty yards or more, low over the grass. Close at hand, a very 

 striking difference is observable between cock and hen, the 

 former having a blue-grey breast and sides, and the centre of the 

 under-parts rich chestnut, while those handsome colours are well 

 set off by the characteristic black anchor-mark on a white ground 

 on the throat of the true quails, the colours in this species being 

 as distinct as in the rain-quail. The young cock is at first brown 

 below like the hen, but gets his full plumage in little over a 

 month. It is only when a pair have fledged young that these 

 quail are seen in coveys, otherwise they are found singly or 

 in pairs. 



The cock is much attached to his mate, and feeds her with 

 insects ; besides the chirping alarm-note when flashed, he has a 

 distinct trisyllabled call, tee-iuee-wee. 



Like the rain-quail, this bird does not leave the Indian 

 Empire (although it has a wide range outside it to the south- 

 east, even to China) but is locally migratory within it. It 

 is found at one time or another almost all over India and 

 Burma, and in Ceylon, but it is essentially a bird of moist 



