Ortygornis pondicerianus, Gmelin. 



Vernacular Names-— [Titur, Ram-titur, Gora-titur, Safed-titur (Urdu, Hindi, 

 Mahrathi), Continental India ; Khyr* (Bengali, Uriya) ; Gowjul-huki (Canarese), 

 Mysore ; Kondari (Tamil) ; Kuwunzu (Telugu) ; Jirufti (Persian). ] 



HE Grey Partridge is found in suitable localities 

 throughout the greater portion of India. It does not 

 extend, however, to the Deltaic districts of Bengal, 

 to Eastern Bengal or Assam, nor, d fortiori, to Ara- 

 can or Burma. A line drawn through Midnapore to 

 Rajmehal, about, indicates its eastern boundary from 

 the Ganges to the Bay of Bengal. From Rajmehal 

 to Chapra, the Ganges, and from Chapra to the Terai, the 

 Gogra, practically form its northern boundary, though isolated 

 specimens from Purneah, Tirhoot, Basti and Bahraich have 

 been reported or sent to me. 



But it eschews dense forests and low-lying and wet lands, 

 and in the vast area included within its range, as west and 

 south of the boundaries above indicated, there are huge tracts, 

 such as the Southern Konkan, the Malabar Coast, and the 

 forest regions of the Central Provinces and their Feudatory 

 States, and of the Tributary Mahals, &c, where it is un- 

 known. 



Moreover, it does not normally ascend the hills to any consi- 

 derable elevation (though I have known a straggler killed near 

 Kalhatti, on the Nilgiris, at an elevation of 5,500 feet), and all 

 the higher hills of Southern India and the Himalayas, above, 

 perhaps, an elevation of 1,500 feet, must be excluded from its 

 range. 



It is common in the northern portions of Ceylon, and isolated 

 specimens have been met with in other parts of the island. I 

 myself shot it at Tuticorin, and saw it within a stone's throw of 

 the square beacon that marks the southernmost extremity of 

 the Peninsula. 



Westwards of India, it occurs in all the lower hills between 

 Afghanistan and the Punjab, and has been observed in the 

 higher valleys of the Suleman Hills, west of Dera Ghazi Khan, 



* This name is also applied to the Swamp Partridge. 



