266 LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 
black on the sides only ; chest barred with black and duff, 
belly and thighs rufous; upper-parts rufous or brown; no 
rufous nuchal collar contrasting with the colour of the back. 
Total length, 5°6 inches ; ‘wing, 374°; ‘tail,"1-2 = “tarsus, (0°05) 
Adult Female-—Chin and throat (and in very old examples the 
middle of the chest) d/ack ; no rufous collar round the back 
of the neck contrasting with the back. General colour above 
rufous or greyish-brown or any intermediate colour (the colour 
varying according to the amount of rainfall in the district 
where the individual occurs, the most rufous forms being 
found in the more arid localities where the rainfall is small), 
mottled with black and more or less margined with pale buff. 
Total length, 6-7 inches; wing, 3°6; tail, 1:2; tarsus,.o°95,. 
Range.—India and Northern Ceylon ; extending eastward of 
the Bay of Bengal through Burma and Tenasserim to the 
Malay Peninsula, Siam, China, Formosa, and the Liu Kiu 
Islands. 
Habits— Mr. A. O. Hume writes:—“Scrub jungle, inter- 
mixed with patches of moderately high grass or dry ground, 
is perhaps the natural home of this species; but it may 
be met with anywhere in low bush jungle and on the skirts 
of forests, and in inhabited districts it greatly affects 
gardens, grass preserves, and similar enclosures. It strays 
into stubble and low crops in the mornings and evenings, even 
remaining in these at times throughout the day, but more 
generally retreating during the hotter noontide hours to the 
cover of some thorny bush or patch of grass upon their margins. 
‘‘ Where the country is very arid, as in most parts of 
Rajputana and many places in the North-Western Provinces, 
this species is scarcely seen except during the rainy season; 
and again, it is almost unknown in densely cultivated and 
populated tracts where there is no jungle and no long grass. 
I have invariably seen it singly or in pairs, and only rarely in 
the latter; never in parties or bevies of five or six, as Jerdon 
says. 
