THE NARBADA valley. 57 



species is so alike, and their habits are so identical, that 

 assertions to the contrary have no doubt arisen from 

 mistake. No game bird could afford more perfect 

 shooting than the painted partridge. Of handsome 

 plumage, and excellent on the table^ his habits in the 

 field admirably adapt him for the purposes of the gun. 

 He frequents the outskirts of cultivation, in spots where 

 bushes and grass-cover fringe the edge of a stream, for 

 he seems to be very impatient of thirst. The proximity 

 of some sort of jungle seems to be as necessary as the 

 neighbourhood of crops. Morning and evening small 

 coveys or pairs of them will be found out feeding in the 

 stubble of the cut autumn crops, that latest reaped 

 being the most likely find. On being disturbed they 

 seldom run farther than to the edge of the nearest cover, 

 from which, on being flushed, they rise like rockets, with 

 a great ivhirr, straight up for twenty or thirty yards, 

 and then sail away over the top of the cover to a 

 distance of a few hundred yards ; this time plumping 

 into the middle of the cover, from which it is not so easy 

 to raise them again. This beautiful bird is most com- 

 mon in the extreme west of the Central Provinces, and 

 in good spots a bag of ten to fifteen brace to each gun 

 may be made in Nimar and the Tapti valley. 



The most common way of shooting quail and part- 

 ridges is by beating them out with a line of men ; but 

 it is a poor sport compared to shooting them over dogs. 

 I have used both pointers and spaniels in this sport. The 

 former secure the best of shooting in the early morning 

 and late in the evening, while the birds are out of cover 

 and the scent good, and four hours' shooting may thus 

 be had in the day. But a team of lusty spaniels is, 

 I think, on the whole preferable, as they are useful also 



