rai rami snhpwl 



Galloperdix lunulatus, Valenciennes. 



Vernacular ITaiaieS.— [Askol, Orissa and Singhbhodm ; Hootkah, (Gondhi) 

 Chanda District. ; Cull-koli, (Tamil) ; Jitta kodi (Telugu.)] 



LTHOUGH the two species cover so much of the 

 same ground that this may not appear quite clearly 

 from an enumeration of the localities where they 

 have each been observed, yet, on the whole, the Red 

 Spur-Fowl is the more Western, the Painted Spur- 

 Fowl the more Eastern, form. 

 The Painted Spur-Fowl has no outlying colony that I 

 know of, and its northern boundary is indicated by the Ganges, 

 Jumna and Sindh rivers respectively. South of these, we have it 

 recorded from Jhansi, Lalitpur, various localities between 

 the Sindh and Betwa in Southern Duttiah and Eastern Gwalior, 

 from Gyah, the Rajmehal hills, from Rajmehal, Monghyr and 

 Beerbhoom, from Singbhoom, Manbhoom, Lohardugga, Sirgooja, 

 Jodhpore, Oodeypore, and many places in Chota Nagpore, from 

 Seoni, Raipur, Sambalpur, north of the Mahanadi, Bhandara, 

 the Ahiri forests, various places in the Tributary Mahals, from 

 Nowagarh, Kurial and other of these Bastar Feudatory States 

 to the Godavari Valley * These localities seem to indicate head 



* Mr. R. Thompson says : — 



" lam not certain that I did not meet with this on the Kymore range. I more 

 than once saw a small Spur-Fowl, frequenting the bamboo jungles, very shy, that 

 I could never either shoot or get a good look at, which I am pretty sure must have 

 been this species. 



"I did not see this species anywhere in the Maikal or Satpura Ranges. 



"It is, however, the common Spur- Fowl of the Chanda district alike below 

 the Ghats and in the Eastern Zemindaries of Panabaras, Kotgal, Koracha, in fact 

 everywhere on the high tableland east of the Wainganga. Found wherever 

 there is thick bamboo cover on the hills or fringing the streams and nalas descending 

 from them. 



" It is an extremely shy bird, becoming, however, bold and familiar on being 

 domesticated. 



11 It is very abundant in the jungles near my house in Chanda, where I have 

 often seen it feeding in company with the Grey Jungle-Fowl. 



" From Chanda it ranges south-east to Bastar and Sironcha. I saw it frequently 

 in the Godavari Valley as low down as the hills north of Rajmandhry in the Madras 

 Presidency. In these hills I found it in company with the Red Jungle-Fowl. In Cen- 

 tral Bastar between i8° and 19 North Latitude, it was very abundant in deep bamboo 

 jungles, where also occasionally I have heard the Red Jungle-Cock crowing. 



" On the Indravati river, 50 miles up from its junction with the Godavari river, 

 I have seen and shot the Painted Spur-Fowl and the Grey Jungle-Fowl, without, 

 however, having seen or heard of a trace of the Red Jungle-Fowl." 



