THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 197 



Distribution . — Excluding Sind and the extreme N. W. Frontier 

 of India, the whole of Northern India as far East as W. Nepal in the 

 Hills and East to and including Behar, but not Bengal and Orissa. 

 Birds from these two provinces and also from E. Nepal are somewhat 

 intermediate between asice and melanonotus, but are nearer the lat- 

 ter, and I agree with Hartert in retaining them with this race. 



Southwards it extends to Deesa, Gwalior, Sambalpur, the Central 

 Provinces to Saran, Parguga and Udaipur and Western Bengal to 

 Chota Nagpore. 



Ty)pe Locality. — Asia. To restrict this further, I now designate 

 Gurgaon, India, as the type locality for this race. 



Nidification. — The Indian Black Partridge breeds principally in 

 May and June and early July, but the breeding season extends over 

 a very protracted j)eriod. I have had eggs taken in early April in 

 the Deccan, and in late September in Behar, whilst Whymper records 

 finding hardset eggs near Naini-Tal at 5,000 feet on the 21st October. 

 In the South it would appear that the favourite nesting month is 

 April, over the central and western portions of its habitat June and 

 perhaps July, and in the drier portions of Behar not until September 

 at the end of the rains. 



I think in some parts of its breeding range two broods are reared 

 in the year, for though niost of the eggs sent me from Behar have 

 been taken in August and September, I have had others taken in 

 April. 



They make their nests in grass, tamarisk or scrub jungle, some- 

 times in sugar-cane, crops or indigo, but most often in the two first 

 named. The nest itself is generally a rather flimsy affair, composed 

 merely of a small amount of grass added to the fallen material and 

 collected in some hollow, either natural or scratched out by the birds 

 themselves. Occasionally, however, the nest is quite a compact 

 affair, a thick pad some two or three inches deep, being formed of 

 grass, dead leaves and odd fallen twigs. 



The number of eggs laid is, I think, most often 6 to 8, but Hume 

 says from 6 to 10, and Jerdon writes of 10 to 12 or even 15 in a 

 clutch. Certainly clutches of 4 and 5 only are by no means rare, 

 and I have frequently had such sent to me which had been ad- 

 vanced in incubation. 



The eggs vary in colour from a pale stone colour, which is rare, 

 to a deep olive chocolate brown. The majority are a rather pale 

 olive brown, and in some almost an olive green, in fact they are 

 very much like the eggs of the common pheasant, but the range of 

 variation is proportionately far greater. I have, however, seen no 

 eggs of the beautiful blue variety occasionally taken in clutches of 

 pheasants' eggs. Many eggs, more especially the darker ones, 

 have numerous white specks and blotches formed by a calcareous 



