THE INDIAN BUSTARD-QUAIL. 173 



larking about, calling and righting, without any care for their 

 obedient mates ; and lastly, the males, and the males only, I 

 believe, tend and are to be flushed along with the young brood. 



This seems a strange departure from what we might call the 

 plan of creation ; but nature is full of these surprises. She 

 goes on (like Babbage's calculating machine) working so long 

 and so steadily on one formula, that you make up your mind 

 that this is a fundamental law of her machinery, and then 

 suddenly (like the machine) she makes a great jump, and a 

 wholly different formula comes for a brief space into operation, 

 and then again the old law resumes its sway. 



Almost throughout the higher sections of the animal kingdom 

 you have the males fighting for the females, the females caring 

 for the young ; here, in one insignificant little group of tiny 

 birds, you have the ladies fighting duels to preserve the chastity 

 of their husbands, and these latter sitting meekly in the nursery 

 and tending the young. It is, to our ideas, a very odd arrange- 

 ment, because we have become so thoroughly imbued with the 

 spirit of the opposite one ; but it answers apparently just as 

 well, so far as the interests of the race are concerned, as that 

 one with which we are so familiar, and on which we pin our 

 faith ; and in this and many similar cases it has often seemed to 

 me that nature mutely warned mankind against dogmatism 

 and against the foolish, though all too prevalent, belief that only 

 what we know and are used to can be good, and that neither 

 government nor society can get along equally well under any 

 laws and forms but just those to which we have become 

 accustomed. 



To return to our Quails : Tickell says that they are " daintily 

 flavoured birds." Jerdon, that " the flesh is excellent, mixed 

 brown and white, succulent and tasty." The upper layer of 

 flesh on the breast is no doubt darker than the lower, but dark 

 or light, it is dry, and by no means tasty according to my ideas ; 

 in fact, it is precisely like that of a hapless Common Quail that 

 has been carried about in a closely-closed basket, without room 

 to move or fresh air, and with very little or no food or water, 

 for three or four days. 



ALTHOUGH to A small extent migratory, a few pairs appear- 

 ing during the rainy season in the drier districts of the North- 

 Western Provinces, Eastern Rajputana, and the Punjab, 

 Cis-Sutlej, in places where they are never seen from Decem- 

 ber to the end of June, still the great majority, I believe, are 

 everywhere permanent residents ; and, though slightly varying 

 their haunts and feeding grounds as the seasons change, yet 

 always breed in the same immediate vicinity in which they have 

 spent the rest of the year. 



They may have two broods in the year, but in Upper India 

 and the Central Provinces I have only found or known of the 



