THREE-TOED OR EUSTARD-QUAILS. 279 



Tuniixjoudera^ Gray, Gen. B. iii. pi. cxxxi. (1846); Hume & 



Marshall, Game Birds Ind. ii. p. 187, pi. (1879). 

 Turnix dussumi;ri^ Jerdon {iiec Ten m.), B. India, ii. p. 599 



(1863). 



Adult Male. — Similar to the female^ but the markings on the 

 upper-parts are coarser, and there is 710 rufous nuchal collar. 

 Total length, 5-3 inches; wing, 3 ; tail, i ; tarsus, 0*85. 



Adult Female. — Like the feinak of T. bhuifordi^ but much 

 smaller ; the back nearly uniform greyish-brown, with fine faint 

 wavy bars of darker brown ; the rufous nuchal collar wider. 

 Total length, 5-5 inches; wing, 3*4; tail, it ; tarsus, 0-85. 



You?iger examples resemble immature specimens of T. blan- 

 fordi, but are, of course, smaller. 



Range. — The Peninsula of India and east of the Bay of Ben- 

 gal as far south as Tippera. 



HaMts. — Colonel Tickell says : — >" This is a solitary bird, found 

 scattered about here and there throughout Bengal in open, 

 sandy, bushy places in and about jungles or fields and dry 

 meadows in cultivated country ; frequently in low, gravelly 

 hills or uplands of ' Khunkur' (nodular limestone). It is met 

 with on both sides of the Ganges, at least as high up as 

 Benares." 



Mr. A. O.Hume says: — ''Its flight is even feebler and shorter 

 than that of the Bustard Quail {T. taigoor); it rises only when you 

 are about to step on it, with occasionally a low double chirp, 

 barely audible to my ears. When flushed it rises with much 

 less noise and whirr than do the Bustard Quails. It glides bee- 

 like through the air for a few paces, just skimming the waving 

 tops of the grass, and drops suddenly, as if paralysed, almost 

 before you can bring your gun to the shoulder. 



" Smart little dogs will readily find it after it has thus drop- 

 ped, and as often as not (so pertinaciously does it cling to its 

 hiding-place) will seize it on the ground, but with only beaters 



