164 THE BLUE-BREASTED OR PAINTED QUAIL. 



fast, that in places where they are abundant they must, I should 

 think, afford excellent sport. Always, be it understood, if you 

 have small dogs to flush them, for without dogs, though you 

 may or may not be able to start them once, you will certainly 

 not succeed in putting them up a second time. 



They feed chiefly on grass seeds ; very little, so far as my 

 experience goes, on either grain or insects, though they do un- 

 doubtedly eat both of these. But I have always found them in 

 meadows, where there was but little cultivation in the neighbour- 

 hood, and perhaps, when they occur where millet fields are 

 common, they may, as I have been told, feed equally on these 

 small grains. 



Mr. Davison has recently been shooting great numbers of this 

 species in the Malay Peninsula, and his experiences, as recorded 

 in the following note, tally closely with mine, derived from obser- 

 vations in Lower Bengal. He says : — ° This species occurs com- 

 monly throughout the western-half of the Malay Peninsula, 

 but it is specially abundant about Klang, in the state of 

 Salangore. 



11 1 found that the adult birds kept in pairs, and when more 

 than two were found together, they consisted, as a rule, of the 

 parent birds and the covey of young. When flushed, they rise 

 singly and fly without reference to each other. 



" They frequent, as a rule, grass land, especially where this is 

 rather swampy. I have on a few occasions flushed and shot 

 them in gardens, but, unlike Turnix plumbipes (which might be 

 termed the Garden Quail par excellence), they much prefer wild 

 grass-covered land and scrub jungle, when the undergrowth of 

 this latter consists of grass, to any gardens. 



" In the morning and evening they are very fond of coming 

 out on to roads and other open and clear places. 



" They are, I think, very silent birds, and are seldom heard 

 calling, even during the breeding season, except when the pair have 

 been separated, when one or other (the male usually) commences 

 calling, and is at once answered by the other. The call is a low 

 soft whistle which may be approximately syllablised as ' Pi-oo 1 

 (whence the Malay name). 



" After having once risen they are very difficult to flush a second 

 time without the aid of dogs, but they do not run nearly so much 

 as Turnix does, and after alighting (and running a few paces or 

 not as the case may be), they squat, and are so reluctant to move 

 that I have often seen them caught by a small terrier that I used, 

 to flush them. 



" Though by no means invariably the case, both sexes when 

 flushed (especially if suddenly come upon) often give utterance 

 to a peculiar sharp note, * tir y tir> tit] uttered very quickly and 

 sharply. 



" Those that I examined — and I have lately dissected numbers 

 — had eaten only grass seeds." 



