4 LtOVt)'s NAtURAL iiistORV. 



wings, the tan is spread to its fullest expanse, the bird looks 

 double the size it did a second before, and sweeps off in grace- 

 ful curves right or left, shortly dropping suddenly, almost as if 

 shot, into some patch of low cover. If no shots have been 

 fired, you may walk straight down, and ten to one find him 

 exactly where you marked him. . . ." 



Mr. Wilson, in his excellent account of this species, tells us -. 

 — "They wander a good deal about the particular hill they are 

 located on, but not beyond certain boundaries, remaining 

 about one spot for several days or weeks, and then shifting to 

 another, but never entirely abandoning the place, and year 

 after year they may, to a certainty, be found in some quarter 

 of it. 



" During the day, unless dark and cloudy, they keep con- 

 cealed in the grass and bushes, coming out, morning and even- 

 ing, to feed. 



" After concealing themselves, they lie very close, and are 

 flushed within a few yards. There is, perhaps, no bird of its 

 size which is so difficult to find after the flock have been dis- 

 turbed and they have concealed themselves ; where the grass 

 is very long, even if marked down, without a good dog, it is 

 often impossible to flush them, and even with the assistance of 

 the best dogs not one-half will be found a second time. A 

 person may walk within a yard of one and it will not move. 

 I have knocked them over with a stick, and even taken them 

 with the hand. In autumn the long grass, so prevalent about 

 many of the places they resort to, enables them to hide almost 

 anywhere, but this is burnt by the villagers at the end of win- 

 ter, and they then seek refuge in low jungle and brushwood, 

 and with a dog are not so difficult to find. 



" Both males and females often crow at daybreak and dusk, 

 and in cloudy weather sometimes during the day. The crow 

 is loud and singular, and, when there is nothing to interrupt, 

 the sound may be heard for at least a mile. It is something 

 like the words chir-a-pir^ chir-a-pir^ chir^ chir, chirwa^ chirwa^ 



