THE BLACK-BREASTED OR RAIN QUAIL. 1 55 



great majority, after a few days' halt, passing on northwards to 

 more congenial localities in the drier portions of the Terais and 

 Duns and the lower ranges of the Himalayas. 



In Nepal they lay early in June ; in the Dun and the Kangra 

 Valley, in the only two instances of which I have a record, at 

 quite the close of that month ; in various localities in Northern 

 Behar, the North- Western Provinces, Oudh and the Punjab in all 

 July ; in Sind, Guzerat, Central India, and the Deccan in August 

 and September ; and in the latter, at any rate in some years, until 

 late in November. 



The nest is always on the ground, almost invariably in the 

 midst of standing crops or of moderately thin and moderately 

 high grass — a small depression in the soil, at times natural, 

 more often scratched by the birds, usually thinly lined with grass, 

 sometimes quite bare, and occasionally containing a regularly 

 made, though scanty, circular grass nest. 



Nine appears to be the full complement of the eggs, though 

 as few as four are occasionally found more or less incubated, 

 and the bird clearly does not commence sitting until she has 

 laid the whole clutch. Sometimes apparently two hens lay in 

 the same nest. 



From Sholapur, Mr. Wenden writes ; — " It was on the 28th 

 July this year that I received my first warning that it was time 

 to discontinue shooting these birds. On that day many of those 

 we shot had well-developed eggs in them. For a week or so 

 before this, the bird had been calling vigorously, evident signs 

 of pairing. 



" On the 4th August I found and took a nest with four eggs. 

 On the 7th „ „ „ one with six and another with the 



same number. 

 On the 1 2th „ „ „ one with five. 



On the 14th „ ,, „ one with six, hard-set. 



On the 25th September „ „ one with nine, showing signs of 



incubation. 



" On the 9th of August I found a single egg, not in, but close 

 by, the nest from which I took six eggs on the 7th, and it 

 struck me that the bird may have been about to lay it when I 

 flushed her from the nest (on the 7th) and dropped it as she 

 rose, or, on returning and finding her eggs gone, had deposited 

 it where found. All the eggs I found were deposited in hollows 

 in the ground (some of them like the imprint of a cow's foot, 

 others so slight as to be almost unobservable), without any 

 lining whatever. The only case in which I noticed any pretence 

 to a nest was on the 12th August, when I found five eggs in a 

 cucumber field. The bird had scraped a hole in a mass of 

 decayed leaves. I noticed many nests besides those which I 

 took ; they were all of the same type, most of them in Jowari 

 or Bajri fields ; some few in grass, — most of them close under 

 the plants or a bush, some of them in the bare open. 



