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



meter, fitting into some natural hollow, deepened, cleared, and made 

 circular by the birds themselves. In the centre the pad is from -^ 

 to 1^ inches deep, and the sides curl up a little with the sides of 

 the hollow. Often the nest is wedged in amongst the actual roots 

 of a tuft of grass, the central blades being beaten down or forced 

 aside to form the requisite space, and the softer parts of the broken 

 grass helping to form the pad itself. As a rule the midribs of the 

 coarser grasses are discarded, and only shreds from the sides of the 

 blades used, but now and then one may find a few roots, tendrils, 

 fern fronds, or other similar materials made use of in the con- 

 struction of the pad. When made in comparatively thick grass, more 

 especially where this is sundried or withered, the Bustard Quail 

 sometimes makes a regular domed nest, though I have never seen 

 one made as elaborately as that described by Dr. Seth Smith as 

 being built by Turnix tanki. I think, as a rule, the dome is as 

 much accidentally as purposely made ; the birds get into a tangle 

 of grass, more or less withered and broken down, and in making 

 the foundations for the nest pad, they force themselves this way and 

 that, push pieces of grass to one side or upwards, and thus make a 

 hollow which they line and over which the twisted grasses are made 

 into a dome. 



The number of eggs laid is normally four, and this number is 

 very rarely exceeded, and three eggs, hard set, are just as rarely 

 found in a clutch. 



Jerdon talks of as many as eight eggs being laid in the same 

 clutch, and Hume says that in thirty nests taken by himself he has 

 seen two clutches of five and one of six. I am afraid to say how 

 many nests I have seen of this bird, but it must be nearer a thousand 

 than five hundred, yet amongst all these I have known but one 

 clutch of six eggs — that was brought to me — and perhaps four of 

 five eggs. 



In North Cachar I have seen — not necessarily taken — as many 

 as a dozen nests in a day, and I worked this district for fifteen 

 years ; after this I was in Pibrugarh five years and in the Khasia 

 Hills yet another five, and in both places Turnix i^ugnax 'plmnbi'pes 

 was most plentiful ; certainly no year has passed without my seeing 

 twenty clutches of its eggs. 



After this experience it may be safely asserted that clutches of 

 anything but four eggs are abnormal. 



In shape the eggs are generally broad ovals with the small end 

 pointed rather sharply, and they vary from broad obtuse ovals to 

 typical, if squat, peg top shaped eggs. The normal egg has a 

 greyish white ground colour, sometimes tinged with a suspicion of 

 yellow or red, and they are covered all over with innumerable dots 

 and specks of dull yellowish and reddish brown with other spots and 

 blotches, some so dark as to appear dull vandyke brown or black. 



