72 THE COMMON HILL PARTRIDGE. 



I KNOW nothing of the nidification of this species. I am 

 now convinced that the eggs and nest near which the two Hill 

 Partridges were snared ( described in " Nests and Eggs," p. 545) 

 must have belonged to Black Partridges. 



The present species is said to lay six or eight white eggs, and 

 I believe this, because this is the character of the eggs of other 

 species of Hill Partridge that we have taken. 



Can the three eggs of " a light brown colour" obtained by 

 Godwin-Austen at the head of the Jhiri River in S. Cachar 

 have really belonged to any species of Arboricola ? 



The MALES average decidedly larger, but, in a large series 

 of measurements, I find females as big as many of the 

 males, so do not think it necessary to give the dimensions separ- 

 ately of the two sexes : — 



Length, 10*5 to 12*0; expanse, i8'0 to 19*25 ; wing, 57 to 6*2 ; 

 tail from vent, 275 to 3'25 ; tarsus, v6 to 2*0; bill from gape, 

 o'8 to ro; weight, 8 ozs. in a small female to 13*6 ozs. in a 

 large fat male. 



The bill is black, brownish on culmen and gonys in some 

 females ; irides brown, deep brown, reddish brown ; orbital skin in 

 old males ( rather granulated and dotted with abortive feathers) 

 and a spot at the gape, crimson, varying in less adult males and 

 females to purplish red ; legs and feet blue grey or slatey grey, 

 more or less tinged with reddish fleshy. Austen says of the 

 Naga Hill bird, pale violet fleshy, which is near enough. Scully 

 says of a female, brownish olive, and Jerdon says red ! All the 

 birds, over twenty in number, of which I have recorded the 

 colours of the soft parts, had them as above described. Certainly 

 the legs and feet never in this species are red, and I think that, 

 even in the case of Scully's bird, the colours must have changed 

 ( which they do very rapidly in summer) before he recorded 

 them. 



In young birds the orbital skin is blue grey only tinged 

 with red, and the legs and feet are slatey grey, only here and 

 there tinged livid fleshy. 



THE PLATE is fair, but the colours are not right. In both male 

 and female an olive green tinge on the back is required ; in 

 the female, too, the breast should be suffused with an olive 

 shade, and in both sexes the legs and feet want a fleshy reddish 

 or pinkish tinge. 



No LESS THAN eight (and some would say nine) of these 

 Arboricolas are said to occur within our limits, and the following 

 key may assist in their discrimination. 



So far as we know, the plumage of the males and females is 

 identical in all the species but torqneolns. I have fancied that 



