THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 601 



Perhaps the most favourite haunt of this little Button Quail is thin 

 thatching grass on the edge of dry cultivation. Hume's experience 

 was much the same as mine, for he saj^s that in the North- Western 

 Provinces, Oadh and the Central Provinces, he found them much 

 wedded to grass, but he adds that he has known several flushed out 

 of patches of grass half an acre in extent. Tickell, writing of this 

 bird, records that it is 



" found scattered about here and there throughout Bengal 

 in open, sandy, bushy places in and about jungles or fields and 

 dry meadows in cultivated country ; frequently in low gravelly 

 hills oi Kunliur (nodular limestone)." 

 So also Jerdon. 



" This species is found in open grassy glades in forests or 



jungles, both on the plains, and more especially in the hilly 



countries, and is also found in grass jungles throughout Bengal, 



and the countries to the Eastward. It is always seen singly, 



in patches of long grass or thick cultivation, flying but a short 



distance, and is verj^ difficult to flush a second time." 



It is an even greater skulker than the Bustard Quail, and though 



like this bird in manner of flight, it is not so strong or noisy on the 



wing, and drops even more quickly into cover. Hume saj^s that 



" it rises only when you are about to step on it with occa- 

 sionally a low double chirp, barely audible to mj ears. . , It 

 glides bee-like through the air for a few paces, just skimming 

 the waving tops of the grasses, and drops suddenly as if para- 

 lysed, almost before jovi can bring your gun to the shoulder." 

 They feed both on grain, grass seeds, green shoots of crops, etc., 

 and on insects, more especially ants. Their flesh is not bad to eat, 

 though rather dry unless very fat. Tickell, however, considers them 

 "most delicious, and when in good plight as fat and delicate as an 

 ortolan." Hume, on the other hand, "always found them insigni- 

 ficant, dry, insipid little things." 



TUENIX TANKI BLANFORDI. 



The Burmese Button Quail. 



Turnix blanforcU.—B\jt]i, J. A. S. B., xxii, p. 80 (1843); 

 Blyth and Walden, B. Burma, p. 151; Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. B. M., 

 xxii, p. 542; Blanford, Avi., B. I., iv, p. 155; Sharpe, Hand-List, 

 i, p. 49 ; Gates, Game B. Ind., i, p. 68 ; Le Mess, Game, S. & W. 

 B. Ind., p. 115; Ogilvie-Grant, Game B., ii, p. 277; Stuart Baker, 

 J. B. N. H. S., xii, p. 493 ; Seth Smith, ibid, xvii, p. 238 ; 

 Haring-ton, ibid, xix, p. 365 ; id, ibid, xx, p. 377 ; Hopwood, ibid, 

 xxi, p. 1215. 



Turnix maculosa. — Apud Gray, Hand-List, B., ii, p. 270 ; Hume 

 & Dav., Str. Feath., vi, p. 452 ; Hume, Cat. No. 834 bis. ; Hume 



2 



