224 The Partridges of Bengal. 



sober hue., a mottled grey and white, delicately pencilled in 

 parts with dark brown. 



Dogs are of great assistance in shooting this species, as 

 they run but little, compared with the grey, afford good scent, 

 and are often found in or near dry cultivation. I use the word 

 dry advisedly ; they are not found in ivet or rice cultivation. 

 They almost invariably get up in pairs. As far as my experience 

 goes I have never seen or heard of such a thing as a covey of 

 partridges in Bengal, three, or four are sometimes found 

 together, but they invariably, when disturbed, fly off in pairs. 



The usual habitat of these birds is grass about three feet 

 high, not far from water. They also frequent the fields of 

 " rahr doll," a kind of pea grown largely in some districts to 

 four or five feet in height, and affording good cover. Where 

 plentiful, they give very good sport either with dogs or beaters, 

 and make a welcome addition to the cuisine of a hungry tra- 

 veller. They have a peculiar sibilating call, low but clear, very 

 much like that of the English grasshopper lark, at one moment 

 appearing to issue from the grass close by, at another some 

 hundred yards off. Their food consists of grain and various 

 grass seeds. They are to be found plentifully in the dry grass 

 savannahs bordering the Ganges, to the north of Moorshe- 

 dabad and the base of the Rajhmahal Hills, and in all favour- 

 able localities in Upper Bengal. The range of this bird seems 

 large. Blyth, in his catalogue, gives Afghanistan, Persia, 

 Syria, Cyprus, Sicily, and North India, as their habitat. I 

 have found them abundant in the ]\|aunbhoom jungles, and 

 they probably extend as far south as Midnapore. 



A third species is the khyer partridge, Perdix gularis, Tern. 

 (Hardwicke, III. Lid. Zool.),. sometimes called the Bengal 

 chickoor, or wood partridge. This is a large bird, and weighs, 

 when full grown, 1-V lb. In several places along the banks 

 of the Ganges, and of some of the other large rivers in Bengal, 

 there is a strip of low land on either side, which is periodically 

 flooded when the rain causes the rivers to rise. On their 

 subsiding, this soon gets covered with a thick jungly growth 

 of high reeds, intermingled with thorny bushes of a white dog- 

 rose, which together form an almost impenetrable mass of 

 vegetation, in places some 16 or 20 feet high, affording capi- 

 tal cover for wild buffaloes, pigs, deer, etc. On the gradual 

 fall of the river Ganges, various irregularities in the ground 

 in this tract of country remain filled with water, forming 

 small lakes, which, scattered here and there, soon get sur- 

 rounded by the above-named dense vegetation. In the begin- 

 ing of the cold weather, one can run up by train from 

 Calcutta, and in one day reach these fine shooting grounds, 

 which extend for miles along the base of the B-ajhmahal Hills, 



