370 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
cultivation is their favourite resort, on which, while still, they are 
exceedingly hard to see. If they were not such arrant chatterers 
they might perhaps have a comparatively great life of it. There 
must be an awful struggle for “ the last word” amongst Chukors. 
I fancy they must sometimes almost welcome the gun as an 
oceasion for changing the subject. Your shikaree takes base 
advantage of this little weakness of the Chukor (which, however, 
they only indulge in early and late in the day while feeding). He 
sends men out to mark them down very early in the morning, 
while the grey snows are still asleep, and the stars are flashing 
their last and brightest in the clear black sky. Poor fellows, 
wrapped in their blankets, how cold they seem when you come 
up with them some hour or two later, when the sun is just 
touching the hill-top! Then, directed by your watchmen, you 
begin to look up one of the coveys they have marked down for 
you, working round and below the birds, and then very quietly 
walking them up. These birds are very strong, and take a good 
deal of shot. They get up wonderfully smartly, and are off in 
every direction. If you secure a right or left, you are to be 
congratulated. Your men all over the ground are on the look-out 
to mark down the birds which almost invariably separate, and 
often go some considerable distance before they pitch in some 
bush clump of grass or scrub. You must lose no time in looking 
up each group one by one; if you have more than one gun, the 
guns should separate and divide the walk, as success in making a 
bag of Chukor depends on leaving the birds no time to regain 
their composure. Constant and rapid disturbance seems to make 
the birds a bit “ mazed,” as they say in Devonshire, and increases 
your chance. But shoot as you will, and walk as you will, probably 
you will not be too pleased with your performance when all is over 
and done,—not at least while you are still a novice at Chukor 
shooting. A Chukor, I may add, is excellent eating. The only 
other Partridge I recollect seeing on these hills is a very handsome 
little bird,—one of the wood partridges, Arboricola torqueola. It 
is essentially a forest bird. You may expect to find it where you 
would find the Pheasant. I shot one in the Bhagi forest: it was 
dusk, the bird was alone, and it flitted through the trees and 
pitched on a bare bough, some fifty yards off, in such a way that 
I almost thought it must be some species of Owl. My shikaree 
told me these birds were pretty numerous in that neighbourhood, 
