194 THE LITTLE BUTTON QUAIL. 



tracts of Rajputana, Sind, &c, though it may be found in 

 these during the rainy season, and because, lastly, it shuns 

 heavy forest and dense jungle, and I think, except in the case 

 of the Himalayas in summer, mountains generally. 



There are, therefore, wide tracts, even within the limits which I 

 have approximately indicated, in which it does not, I believe, 

 occur ; and nothing but the co-operation of sportsmen all over 

 the country will enable us to obtain a really correct notion of 

 the actual distribution within our limits of this very pretty 

 little species. 



Outside our limits, it has as yet only been recorded from 

 Formosa. It has not been observed in any other part of China, 

 and it is just possible that it may have been introduced into 

 Formosa, as the Eastern or Chinese Francolin has been introduc- 

 ed into Mauritius, 



In UPPER India I have almost exclusively met with it in 

 patches of low, dense grass, and most generally in patches of 

 this nature situated in Dhak, (Butea fvondosa^) or other thin bush 

 or tree jungles. Occasionally I have flushed it from low crops, 

 and not unfrequently from belts of grass surrounding and divid- 

 ing fields of these. 



It is hard to find without dogs, only rises when hard pressed, 

 rises almost silently, sails away for a dozen yards like some large 

 bee, and drops suddenly into some dense tuft of grass whence, 

 as a rule, it makes no attempt to run, and where the dogs will 

 often pounce upon it. 



I have once or twice seen it feeding in the early mornings in 

 the little open spaces intervening between thinly-set tufts of 

 grass growing in lands which are flooded during the rains. 

 During these latter I have seen them gliding like little mice 

 about the paths of my own and other gardens, where there 

 was plenty of moderately-high fine grass. Two or three shot 

 during the cold season had eaten only grass seeds, while two 

 shot in my garden in Etawah had fed almost exclusively on 

 termites. 



I cannot say that I have ever noticed their call, and I believe 

 that they are generally very silent birds. I really know so little 

 about this species, though I have probably seen ten times as 

 many of these as I have of the Indian Button Quail, that I am 

 fain to quote what little others have recorded about it. 



Colonel Sykes remarked that " they affect thick, short grass 

 and fields of pulse of Dolichos biflovns, PJiaseolas max, and 

 Ervum lens. I never found the bird otherwise than solitary. 

 It is so difficult to flush that it not unfreqently rises from 

 beneath the feet, and when on the wing, its flight is so abrupt, 

 angular, and short, that it is generally down ere the gun is 

 well up to the shoulder." 



