12 THE BLACK PARTRIDGE OR COMMON FRANCOLIN. 



horn, if I may use the word, of the Arvalis) in the Gurgaon 

 district, where every place is as dry as an old bone. 



Again, you may find them in fields of all kinds, irrigated or 

 not — young mustard fields especially, if the environment be 

 suitable, being favourite resorts. 



But whether in hills or plains, you need never hope to find 

 more than a straggler or two, unless there be in the immediate 

 neighbourhood thin forest or jungle of some kind, be it brush, 

 tamarisk, stunted date, grass., reed or rush. 



The only exceptions that I have known to this rule have been 

 in parts of the country where great quantities of sugarcane are 

 grown ; and here, if there be any permanent forest or jungle 

 within 20 or 30 miles where this Francolin is common, they will 

 migrate to the cane for a season when it gets high enough, and 

 take up their quarters in it as if it was a natural jungle. 



Wherever you may be, you need never remain a second day 

 in ignorance of the proximity of Black Partridges. By the 

 earliest dawn, their clear, far-reaching, cheerful call, syllablized 

 in a score of ways by Natives and Europeans,* rings out through 

 the fresh morning air ; and as soon as it is light enough to look 

 about, you will, by silently following the sound, have little diffi- 

 culty in discovering some, at any rate, of the vocalists, each posted 

 on some convenient little eminence — a clay fence, an old post, a 

 rock projecting from a hill side, an ant hill — any raised place, in 

 fact, except a bush or tree, on one of which / myself never yet 

 saw this bird perch.*)* 



No doubt they call most during the cold weather and breed- 

 ing season, but even in the autumn the bird is not quite silent. 

 In March it is vociferous to a degree in the early morning ; and, 

 though, as the sun gets well above the horizon, the concert ceases, 

 it may be heard occasionally, especially if separated from its mate, 



*" Be quick, pay your debts," is about the best English version. " Subhan, tere 

 kudrut" (Oh ! Omnipotent One, thy power who shall fit, ly describe?), the most popular 

 amongst Muhammadans. The Muhmmadans, by the way, have a beautiful superstition 

 that all birds and beasts welcome the dawn with some prayer or thanksgiving to the 

 Creator. There is a good deal about this in the Markaz Insan Kheiwan, a transla- 

 tion, I think, of the Ahwani Sufa. But to return : Other natives render it, "juk-juk, 

 tee-titur." " Lehsan, pidj, adrakh" (garlic, onions, ginger), is also much approved. 

 Adams calls it whee-wha-which-a-whiek, &>c. , &c. But as a fact the call has a semi- 

 metallic ring, which is its leading character, and which no words can reproduce, 

 though I have heard natives imitate it to perfection with a sort of whistle. Mr. 

 Brooks says : — 



" The descriptions given by some writers of the call of this bird are absurd. It 

 could not be spelt. It is similar to the call of the Common English Partridge, but 

 has five notes instead of two, the three last being rapid, while the two fh'st are some- 

 what deliberate. It is a hoarse crow followed by a chuckle of three notes. It 

 generally crows from some little eminence or mound, but I have frequently seen it 

 doing so from a detached tree in the jungle. In the latter situation it is very difficult 

 to approach. It sits, not on the top of the tree, but on one of the larger branches." 



t But it does, at times, thus perch, as Mr. Brooks attests the fact, and as may be seen 

 from Mr. O. Greig's note quoted further on ; and Mr. Young, writing from Kullu, also 

 says: " I once saw this Partridge perch in a cheel tree, at Serai Chungus on the 

 Bhimber route to Kashmir. Not being at that time used to perching Partridges, I 

 shot it to make sure of the species." 



