THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND Cu4YION.< 369 
A normal full clutch is 8 to 10 but as few as 5 or 6 eggs have been 
found incubated, whilst on the other hand 11 or 12 eggs are not rare 
and occasionally clutches are found much bigger still. Mr. Livesey 
records a nest of an allied Persian sub-species containing no less than 
21 eggs. 
In colour the eggs are generally a very pale yellowish or greyish stone 
colour, more or less freckled all over with pale reddish brown or pinkish 
purple; in some eggs there are no markings beyond these minute 
freckles, but in others there are a fair number of small irregular blotches 
of the same colour scattered here and there amongst the other mark- 
ings, and in a few only these markings are still larger and more numer- 
ous, Some eggs have the ground colour a pale café-au-lait, and in some 
the eggs look, as described by Hume, “asif drops of white paint 
tinged with purple had been dropped upon them.” 
In shape they vary from fairly true ovals to ovato-pyriform, and 
the texture is close and hard and with a fair amount of gloss. 
The average of 200 eggs is 43:0 x 31°7 mm. and the extremes are 
as follows: longest 48°2 x 32:1, shortest 37°6 x 30°4 mm. ; broadest 
46°1x<33°1 mm.; most narrow 40°1x29°0 mm. 
Habits.—The Chukor is found at practically all levels, from almost 
that of the plains, where these are broken and rocky and interspersed 
with hills and ravines, to 14,000 feet snow level and well above that 
to 16,000 feet or more, as the summer advances and the snow recedes. 
It is found in almost any kind of country other than actual forest, 
but where there are grass uplands it may be found in the immediate 
vicinity of these also. They must be amongst the most hardy and 
adaptive of birds, for they will stand the most extraordinary heat, 
such as that of the central portions of Arabia and Mesopotamia, or 
the bitter cold of deep snows on the higher ranges of the Himalayas. 
They are not, however, found in any of the more humid areas where the 
rainfall is prolonged over many months. Typically, they are birds 
of the deserts, rocky barren hills or the more moderately dry hills 
of the outer ranges of the Himalayas which, though well watered and 
wooded, have wide areas of grass land or stretches of cultivation. 
According to Hume, Wilson and others, their favourite grounds 
seem to be grassy hillsides, with or without a certain amount of culti- 
vation and, indifferently, whether covered with a mere scanty growth 
of coarse grass or fairly well covered with bushes, etc., in addition to 
the grass itself. In the N.-W. of its range, however, it is found in the 
barest and rockiest of country ; great hillsides, strewn with rocks and 
boulders for the most part devoid of all vegetation beyond scattered 
tufts of withered grass, a few windbeaten and distorted bushes, and 
perhaps here and there in the hollows a wheat-field or some other kind 
of cultivation. 
In the non-breeding season they collect in coveys of some size, 
generally of a dozen or so, often as many as 30, whilst Wilson talks of 
