rai kmrm nunm iiti 



Microperdix blewitti, 5wme, 



Vernacular Names.— [Sirsee-lawa, Mandla, B&lagkdt, Ckdnda 



LL defined as is the range of the Painted Bush-Quail, 

 still more so is that of its eastern congener. This 

 latter has been procured in Sirguja of Chota Nag- 

 pore, in the Raipur, Sambalpur, Bhandara, Bala- 

 ghat, Mandla, and Seoni districts of the Central 

 Provinces, and the southern part of the Narsinghpur 

 district, and it extends to the Denwa valley below 

 the Pachmarhi hills and the Sal forests of Delakhari. 



" It is very abundant," writes Mr. R. Thompson, " in the 

 Chanda district throughout the southern and eastern portions, 

 in Sironcha and the Godavari valley. It is found also in 

 Bastar on all the larger nallas and rivers, and spreads up on 

 to the Bela-Dila plateau, which has an elevation of 3,600 feet." 



Mr. Ball also got it in the Bastar States, in Nawagarh and 

 Kurial. 



Nothing further absolutely is as yet known of its distribu- 

 tion, which, however, we may conclude to embrace the hilly 

 tracts in the western portions of Chota Nagpore, and the 

 eastern half of the Central Provinces, including the Feudatory 

 States attached to the latter. 



It is, of course, like its congener, an essentially Indian form. 



I KNOW nothing of its habits, which we may presume to be 

 precisely similar to those of its better known congener, but Mr. 

 F. R. Blewitt, to whom I first owed specimens, and after whom 

 I named it, writes to me about it as follows : — 



"This really pretty Bush-Quail is extensively distributed 

 throughout the forest tracts and scrub jungle bordering the 

 various low hill ranges in the districts of Raipur and Bhan- 

 dara, and more sparsely in similar localities in the south- 

 western sections only of the Sambalpur district. I do not 

 believe it exists in the other half, at least, my men and I never 

 secured a specimen. It also affects, at certain seasons, grass 

 patches and fields near hills or jungle, 



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