1/8 THE INDO-MALAYAN BUSTARD-QUAIL. 



EXCEPT that it frequents more humid localities and everywhere 

 ascends mountains, the habits of the present species do not 

 differ materially from those of its Indian representative. It is, 

 however, perhaps even more essentially a bird of clearings 

 and gardens, especially gardens where there are clear lines 

 between rows of beans, sweet potatoes, and the like, up and down 

 which it can run. It is never found in dense forest or heavily- 

 wooded tracts, and the countries it affects being so much 

 richer in low cover of all kinds, it is not so much a grass bird 

 as taigoor is. 



It is almost always flushed singly, very rarely in pairs, never 

 in parties or coveys, except whilst the broods are young, when one 

 old bird and four, or occasionally five, chicks may be put up 

 together. 



In this species too the females rule the roast ; and in Malay 

 countries, as Sir Stamford Raffles correctly says, a hen-pecked 

 husband is commonly called a " Pee- Yoo" in derision. 



Grass seed and the tips of tender bladesof grass are pro- 

 bably its chief food ; but it also eats a variety of tiny seeds, 

 beetles, and other insects. It seems to be very little of a grain- 

 eater. Common as it is in gardens, it is rare to find it in 

 paddy fields or paddy stubbles. 



I do not think that either this or the Indian species drinks 

 much, if at all. I have never seen either drinking nor heard of 

 any one who has, while the Perdiculas, Microperdix, &c, habitu- 

 ally drink, and may often be caught in the act. 



Like their Indian congeners they are terrible runners ; it takes a 

 small, very active dog to flush them, and when put up they are 

 scarcely well on the wing before they drop, as if shot, into some 

 thick bush or tuft of grass, whence they start off running again. 

 Without dogs you will never flush one-tenth of the birds, 

 even the first time ; and once a bird has made its flight (such 

 as it is), it is simply hopeless endeavouring to put it up a second 

 time by any ordinary beating. Like taigoor, too, they are 

 habitually very silent birds ; so far as I know, it is the females 

 alone who call, and these only during the breeding season. 



Whether it is owing to their skulking habits and the greater 

 density, as a rule, of the low cover in the regions they frequent, 

 I cannot say ; but they seem to me more sparsely distributed 

 than is the Indian bird. Of the latter you might in many places, 

 with good dogs and small charges, bag by hard work at least 

 a dozen, and possibly twenty, couple in a day, whereas, from what 

 I know myself and from what I hear from others, I doubt whether 

 you could anywhere shoot even half this latter number of 

 phimbipesy fag as you might. They are, I think, more thinly 

 spread about the country. 



LIKE THE preceding species, the Indo-Malayan Bustard-Quail 

 is, to a small extent, migratory, ascending the hills higher 



