396 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXIII. 



0-9" to 1-02"; bill from gape 0-68" to 0-78"; weight 1-7 



to 2-25 oz." 



" Males— length, 5-6" to 6-25"; expanse, 10^9" to 12-3" ; 



wing, 3-12" to 3-5"; tail from vent, 1-0" to 1-4"; tarsus 



0-95" to 1-12"; bill from gape, 0-7" to 0-81"; weight 1-5 



to 2-65 oz." 

 I give Hume's measurements and weights in full, but cannot 

 understand them, as they are almost exactly contrary to my own 

 measurements, which, in agreement with other observers and natu- 

 ralists, shew the female to be a decidedly bigger bird than the male. 

 Jerdon gives the wing measurement of this form as 3-6", and says 

 that the male is smaller. 



Distribution. — Federated Malaj?- States and West Siam, the Plains 

 of Burmah and the whole of the Western and Southern Burmese 

 -Tomas, or Hill tracts ; the North and North-West Chin Hills, Chit- 

 tagong and its Hill tracts, the whole range of countrj^, plains and 

 hills, extending West as far as Sikkim throughout Assam and the 

 Bengal Dooars and Nepal, together with the wetter, better forested 

 districts at their base, from Mymensingh to Bettiah in Behar where 

 however it meets the Southern form taijoor and intergrades with it. 

 Niclification. — They breed practically all the year round, princi- 

 pally between April and September, and one hen will apparently go 

 on laying eggs as long as she can find a supply of husbands to hatch 

 the eggs she lays and to look after her innumerable progeny when 

 hatched. 



Dr. H. E. Butler, quoting from the German of Huth, tells us 

 that in 1890, a female Turnix nigricollis laid no less than 8 clutches 

 of eggs, and from 3 of these young were hatched. It must, however, 

 be noted that Huth speaks of the female of this species as being 

 " a pattern of love, attention and solicitude towards the little chick." 

 I have had ijlumhi'pes, tanhi and dussumieri in captivity, but I 

 found that though I could keep any numbers of the males together, 

 I could not keep two females, as they always fought until one was 

 disabled. Unfortunately I never managed to induce them to breed, 

 though the hens would drop casual eggs here and there, of which 

 they took no notice. 



It is the cock bird that has to do all the hatching and looking 

 after the young, and the hen, as soon as she has laid her first set of 

 eggs, goes off* to hunt up another male to look after her second, and 

 so on, until matrimony palls for the season, and she either indulges 

 in lonely blessedness or joins one or two other ladies who are also 

 grass widows for the time being. 



The male, having hatched the eggs a process which takes about 

 twelve days, then looks after the young and brings them up, per- 

 forming his duties in the most admirable manner, feeding, tending 

 them with the greatest solicitude, brooding them at night and 



