48 GAME BIRDS OF IKDIA. 



road side by dogs, when it at once takes refuge in trees. It is 

 found from 3,000 to nearly 8,000 feet ; walks and runs with its 

 tail semi-erect, and frequents both forests and bushy and grassy 

 ground, coming to the fields and more open spaces to feed in the 

 morning and evening. Its eggs are occasionally found by the 

 coolies when weeding the Tea-gardens in June and July, and are 

 usually, I am told, five to eight in number. Its call sounds some- 

 thing like koorclri-koGrchi, at other times hoorook-koorook. 



Gallopliasis Horsfieldii, figured by Gray in his Genera of Birds, 

 and also by Wolf, is found in all the hilly regions of Assam, 

 Sylhet, Tipperah, and Chittagong, where called Muthura. It 

 differs from the Darjeeling Kalij by having the back and rump 

 white, &c. I found it in the Khasia Hills, at between 3,000 and 

 4,000 feet of elevation. It grades into the Burmese 6r. lineatus, 

 specimens from Arrakan, being apparently hybrids between the 

 two species. 



Sub-fam. Galling. 



Head sometimes furnished with fleshy crest and wattles, or 

 crested, or sub-crested ; tail usually of fourteen feathers, com- 

 pressed, and more or less divaricate, held demi-erect ; the upper 

 tail-coverts in the males are (typically) elongated and pendent. 



This division comprises, according to our views, the Jungle-fowls 

 of India and Malay ana ; the Fire-backs, and the black Phea- 

 sants, peculiar to the Malayan region ; and a small group from 

 India and Ceykm, the so called Spur-fowl of Indian sportsmen. 

 Although one species extends to the lower ranges of the Himalayas, 

 it cannot be called a Plimalayan form, and thus this series of game 

 birds differ remarkably in their geographic distributions from the 

 last, only one form of which (and that one osculant with the 

 present division) extends south of the Himalayan region. A 

 very beautiful bird, Diardigallus prelatus, Bonaparte, from Siam, 

 may be considered the link from the Kalij Pheasants to the Jungle- 

 fowl, or rather to the Fire-backs. It has a peacock-like crest, a 

 rather long glossy black tail, the upper plumage and breast silvery 

 grey, and the rump pale golden yellow. It is figured by Gould in 

 his birds of Asia, pt. XII., pi. 4. Next this should come the 



