4 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY, 
wings, the tan 1s 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 auc 
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, 
