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JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVIl. 



Distrihution.-The typical Painted Partridge is found only m 

 Cevlon and in the South of India. In the west and central portion 

 of 'its range it only occurs well to the south, but on the east works 

 further North. Its northern limits may be taken as Khandesh and 

 Eaipur working up on the east into Behar. The specimens m the 

 British' Museum come from Ceylon, Belgaum, Khandesh, Deccan, 

 Raipur, Chanda and Behar. In Ceylon, according to Wait, it is 

 confined to the Ura basin and the eastern and south-eastern slopes 

 of the hills. 

 Type Locality. — Bangalore. 



Nidification.— Throughout practically the whole area over which 

 both races of this Partridge breed, the breeding season seems to be 

 from the time the rains break, i.e., the middle or end of June upto 

 the end of September, July and August being the months in which 

 most eggs are laid. There are very few eggs of this sub-species in 

 Museums, and the Hume series consists wholly of eggs of jjallidus, 

 the northern form, but Col. Sparrow sent me a few from Trim- 

 ulgherry taken in August and September, and I have others from 

 the Buchanan and Bulkley collections taken from July to 

 September. In Ceylon it is said to lay " about Xmas time." 



The Painted Partridg'fe" appears to select patches or strips of grass 

 and scrub jungle in between cultivated fields and open country 

 rather than extensive stretches of grass-land in which to breed, and 

 its favourite ground is perhaps such as is evergreen with rather thin 

 grass two or three feet high, more or less mixed with bushes. Jerdon, 

 who was not much interested in nidification, long ago remarked on 

 this Partridge's predilection for laying its eggs under the shelter of 

 some bush and my correspondents inform me that they think the 

 majority of nesting sites selected are of this nature. The nest itself 

 is very primitive, merely a few pieces of grass and a few dead leaves 

 on the ground, sometimes in a hollow, sometimes on quite flat 

 ground, where the eggs arc only kept from rolling about by the fall- 

 en rubbish around them. 



The eggs appear to vary in number from 4 to 7 or 8 in a full clutch, 

 and I can find no satisfactory evidence to prove the assertions some- 

 times made that they lay 10 or 12. 



In shape they are very similar to those of the Black Partridge, 

 but whilst some are quite as peg-top in shape as the most pyrif orm 

 of the eggs of that bird, some are much more of a true oval than 

 any I have seen of Francolinus francolinus. In c^our they are, on 

 the whole much paler, much less brown and mor^ inclined to a pale 

 stone colour or very pale olive-grey. A few eggs are almost a pure 

 grey, and I have seen no eggs of the comparatively dark olive- brown 

 so common in the eggs of the Black Partridge. 



