414 PHASIASID^. 



I have found eggs in the Dhoon as early as the 4th April, and 

 at Simla as late as the 20th June. They breed at all elevations, 

 from the level of the Terai (where it may be 1200 feet above the 

 sea-level) up to fully 8000 feet. 



They are not very particular as to choice of locality, but more or 

 less inhabited and thinly forest-clad tracts, with pretty dense 

 undergrowth, are usually chosen ; little, densely bushed water- 

 courses on the sides of hills, moderately thickly or somewhat thinly 

 covered with oak and rhododendron forest, and in the neighbour- 

 hood of fields, being much affected. 



The Common Kalij hardly forms a regular nest. It gets together 

 a pad, sometimes rather massive, sometimes very slight, of fine 

 grass and coarse moss-roots, mingled with a little grass or a few 

 sprigs of moss, and in a slight depression in the centre of this it 

 lays its egg. One which I measured in situ in May 1871, in the 

 valley of the Sutlej just below Kotegurh, was circular, 11-5 in diar- 

 meter and 4 inches in thickness outside, with a central depression 

 6 inches wide and nearly 2 inches in depth in the centre. Others, 

 again, have been mere linings to a slight hollow in the ground, 

 either natural or scratched by the birds ; I have seen a great many 

 nests of this species, and they were generally very scanty. The 

 nest is usually well concealed under tufts of fern (they are very- 

 fond of fern-clad hill-sides), grass, or " ringall " as the natives call 

 the slender dwarf hill-bamboos. 



I have never found more than nine eggs myself, but I have had 

 as many as thirteen brought me by natives, said to have been found 

 in one nest. As a rule, I do not think they lay more than nine 

 eggs, and certainly one rarely sees more than eight or nine young 

 birds with a pair of old ones. 



Dr. Jerdon says that " the Kalij lays from nine to fourteen eggs, 

 very similar in size and colour to those of the domestic hen. They 

 are hatched about the end of May." 



Prom Gurhwal Mr. Erederic Wilson writes to me : — " The Kabj 

 Pheasant (murgJii or Tcookera of the Paharis) is found from the foot 

 of the hills, or rather from the Sewalik Eange, to the Snows, and 

 consequently breeds at all elevations up to 9000 feet, in a few 

 localities still higher ; I lately found the nest above the village of 

 Sookee in the Bhagiruttee Valley, which must have been at 9500 feet. 

 In the Dhoon, at the foot of the hills and in the lower valleys, the 

 Kalij begins to lay in April. In the higher ranges it lays in May, 

 and some birds not till the beginning or middle of June. The nest, 

 if it can be called such, is generally in a coppice where there is 

 plenty of underwood, and under an overhanging stone, or thick 

 low bush, or tuft of grass. It is merely a hole scraped in the 

 ground. The eggs are nine to fourteen in number, very like those 

 of some domestic fowls, a yellowish or buffy white. One I have 

 before me is 2 inches long and 1-5 wide. Some are rounder, one 

 from another nest is 2-0 long and 1"62 wide. Both parent birds 

 are generally found with the young brood. Occasionally very late 

 broods would lead one to infer, either that the Kalij sometimes has 



