NOVELTIES. 469 



Once, and once only, did I meet with this species, and that 

 was near the bases of the hills in the south-eastern portion of 

 the Manipur Plain. 



There were two coveys — one of six and the other of five — 

 feeding in the very early morning in a tiny patch of ground 

 a few yards square, thickly covered with large tufts of freshly 

 springing elephant grass. This patch had recently been burnt ; 

 probably it had been fired by design, but the fire had not 

 spread, and all around for many hundreds of yards stretched 

 a dense unbroken thicket of elephant grass, 15 feet high, and 

 so thickly set that it was next to impossible to force one's way 

 through it. 1 did not see the birds myself as I was a few 

 yards to the right, but two of my people, on whom I could rely, 

 saw them distinctly as they ran into the high grass, and describ- 

 ed them to me as small blackish Partridges of an unknown kind. - 



There were about two square miles of high grass covering 

 very uneven and broken ground, and it seemed hopeless to beat 

 it, as we had no elephants and no dogs. So sending every one 

 away quietly, I ensconced myself in the high grass on the 

 opposite side of the little opening to the place at which the 

 birds had disappeared, and stood patiently waiting for about 

 two hours. When it became too late to hope for their re-ap- 

 pearance (this kind of bird rarely feeds in the open after 

 9 A.M.), I recalled my men and set to work to try and burn 

 the grass, as a good breeze was blowing ; but after an hour 

 thus wasted, we had to abandon the attempt. The fire would 

 not spread, the grass was nearly dry, it had lost I mean all 

 greenness, and nearly all natural moisture, but it had rained 

 incessantly for the previous three days and nights and was 

 still drizzling, and everything was too sodden to take fire. 

 Naturally, I was not going to move until I did get a specimen, 

 so my whole camp, soldiers and sailors (we had a lot of boat- 

 men), camp followers, and all the inhabitants of the village 

 were turned out. First we tried cutting, but it soon became 

 obvious that this would be too long a job. So we set to work 

 to divide off the expanse into a number of irregularly sized 

 patches, and this the configuration of the ground with its 

 several ridges, along the crests of which the grass grew com- 

 paratively thinly, greatly facilitated. Although we had fully 

 one hundred men working with their heavy hatchet-swords, 

 (dahs as the Burmese call them), and working, as only these 

 Easterns can, at trace cutting, it was some hours before we had 

 got the ground into shape, and fully 3 o'clock before beating 

 commenced. At dusk, by dint of our united efforts, I had knock- 

 ed over six, of which we had failed to retrieve one. The first 

 bird had convinced me that the species was new to me, and 

 what still more surprised me was that the villagers one and all 



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