238 
F11ANC0I,IN. 
During tlic breeding season the male bird, morning 
and evening, utters a sonorous note, ‘tre, tre, tre;’ 
and there is an adage in Sicily, among the peasantry, 
that this cry indicates its value to be three taris, a 
sum equivalent to one franc and twenty-five centimes. 
In India the Francolin or Black Partridge is very 
common. Captain Irby (“Ibis,” vol. iii, p. 236,) says; 
— “This handsome Partridge is found in great numbers 
in all grass jungles near water, and is particularly 
numerous on the banks of the Gogra, Choka, and 
other large rivers. Good sport is to be had with them 
in November, in the Imlde or turmeric fields. This 
Partridge was common in Kumaon in April, May, and 
June. Its call was to be heard wherever there was 
any cultivation.” He further adds, when describing 
the Grey Partridge, ( Perdix ponticeriana,) that its 
flesh is dry, and scarcely eatable, being a degree worse 
than that of the Black Partridge, (the Francolin.) 
M. Malherbe, however, says that in Sicily it is “un 
gibier exquis,” and that it is so much sought after at 
all seasons, that it is becoming more and more rare. 
Captain Irby says that in India the Francolin will 
take refuge in trees when flushed, but rarely. 
The Francolin nests on the ground underneath some 
bush, where it scrapes a hollow, which it fills with 
dried leaves and stalks, and in this nest it deposits 
from ten to fourteen eggs, which are of a pale grey 
yellow or white, and either unicolorous or having large 
brownish, almost invisible spots marked upon them. 
From a paper on the nidification of European birds, 
in “Naumannia,” for 1853, p. 419, by Baldamus, I 
translate the following about the egg of the Francolin: — 
“Two eggs in my collection, and many others in the Paris 
collections, from Cyprus, differ materially from that 
