324 CUESOBI1DJE. 



a hen that has been disturbed from her eggs (where a pair are seen 

 eggs as a rule will not be found) ; when she has been spotted, the 

 searcher should sit down at some distance and keep his eye on her 

 through glasses, after a short time she will return and squat over her 

 eggs. This spot should be carefully marked, and after making an 

 alignment he should try and walk straight up to it, never taking his 

 eye off it. The hen bird will always try and deceive him by running 

 sneakingly straight away from the nest ; the eye almost invariably 

 follows the bird and the site of the nest is lost, but even with greatest 

 care many will walk up to where they think the eggs are without 

 being able to see them : the only chance then is to retire again to 

 some distance and await the return of the parent bird, which does 

 not as a rule take long, as the bird feels so confident that she has 

 skilfully concealed her eggs from the eye of man, that she comes 

 back in a very short time to them. We found several nests on a 

 plain near the old cantonments of Delhi, at the end of March, most 

 of the eggs being hard-set." 



Mr. J. Davidson says : " This is very common on the bare open 

 parts of Sholapoor, but was rare in Satara. 



" It breeds abundantly in April, May, June, July, and August, 

 laying its eggs in the slighest hollow on bare ground ; I have never 

 found the eggs (I can hardly say the nest) at all sheltered or near 

 any bush or tuft of grass. 



" I do not think Jerdon is correct in stating it usually lays three 

 eggs, as out of nearly twenty nests I have taken, or had brought to 

 me, none have contained more than two eggs." 



Colonel Butler tells us : " Belgaum, 29th April, 1880. I noticed 

 a chick about a week old following the two parent birds on the old 

 Race-course. I galloped up to the spot, and, of course as I expected, 

 saw the two old birds running away alone. However, as the ground 

 was very bare I got down from my horse, and after a careful search 

 discovered the little thing squatting like a stone right out in the 

 open. I took it up in my hand and examined it, and then put it 

 down again, when it raised itself erect just like one of the old birds 

 and ran away across the maidan for at least 100 yards, after which 

 I lost sight of it. It was covered with greyish-buff down much 

 mottled with dark blacldsh-brown spots." 



The eggs of this species seem to average slightly broader and 

 possibly somewhat more brightly coloured than those of O. gatticus, 

 but they are in other respects very similar to these. The ground- 

 colour varies from cream-colour to bright buff. The markings are 

 complicated. There are first large clouds, or patches, spots, and 

 blotches, and smears of a very pale inky grey, sometimes occupying 

 nearly the whole surface oE the egg, at times only a small portion 

 of this ; then above this are lines, scratches, spots, and occasionally 

 streaks of blackish brown or black and a rich olive. These mark- 

 ings are mostly small, niggling, and close-set, with here and there 

 big, clumsy, inky-black smears or smudges intermingled. 



Elsewhere I have thus described them : " The eggs are very sphe- 



