Mr. D. Seth-Smith,



318



them the position of the sexes is reversed. The females are the

larger and handsomer birds. The females only call, the females

only fight—natives say that they fight for the males, and probably

this is true. What is certain is that, whereas in the case of

almost all the other Game Birds it is the males alone that can be

caught in spring cages, etc., to which they are attracted by the

calls of other males, and to which they come in view to fighting, in

this species no male will ever come to a cage bated with a male,

whereas every female within hearing rushes to a cage in which a

female is confined, and if allowed to meet during the breeding-

season, any two females will fight until one or other is dead, or

nearly so.


“The males, and the males only, as we have now proved

in numberless cases, sit upon the eggs, the females meanwhile

larking about, calling and fighting, without any care for their

obedient mates; and lastly, the males, and the males only, I

believe, tend and are to be flushed along with the young

brood.


“Almost throughout the higher sections of the animal

kingdom you have the males fighting for the females, the females

caring for the young; here, in one insignificant little group of

tiny birds, you have the ladies fighting duels to preserve the

chastity of their husbands, and these latter sitting meekly in

the nursery and tending the young.”


I was very" glad indeed to see, in a well-known bird-

dealer’s shop, in October last, a cage containing several Bustard-

Quails ; for it is very rare for any species of Tumix to be

imported alive into this country. The consignment referred to

consisted, for the most part, of Turnix dussut?iieri, the Tittle

Bustard- or Button-Quail; but I noticed also two fine females

and one male of the rarer and more handsome T. tanki ,—the

Greater Button-Quail, or Indian Bustard-Quail. There were

also two males of the Black-tliroated or Common Bustard-Quail,

Tur?iix taigoor. I left the shop with the three examples of T.

tanki , a pair of T. dussumieti, and a single male of T. taigoor.

T. tanki is certainly the rarest as well as the most handsome of

the three species; it has been represented in the Zoological



