i6 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



[January 



Retarded emergence. — In the autumn of 1888, I received some 

 pupae of P. machaon <from Wicken Fen, one of which is now wintering 

 for the second time and is perfectly alive. I do not remember having 

 seen a record of any previous instance of this although doubtless it has 

 often been noticed. 



My friend, Mr, Henry Bartlett informs me that he has known 

 E. cardamines to remain 3 years in the pupa stage. 



The question of retarded emergence from the pupa in our climate 

 is to me always a very interesting one as I think that to that cause 

 more than to a possible immigration should be ascribed most of those 

 erratic appearances of species which occasionally puzzle us. — C. A. 

 Briggs, 55, Lincolns Inn Fields — 17th Dec, 1889. 



NOTES ON A FEW INDIAN GAME BIRDS. 



By F. E. PRESCOTT-DECIE. 



I feel that I ought to preface these notes with the admission that 

 my acquaintance with even the few Indian game birds noticed in 

 them is but slight, having been acquired during a three months stay 

 in the Ahmedabad Zilla in Gujerat during the winter of 1888-89. 

 During those three months, however, I saw the commoner birds 

 almost every day, for I spent the greater part of them in camp on 

 shooting expeditions ; and even when I was not in camp I always 

 went for a walk into the fields in the early morning, and seldom forgot 

 to take my field-glasses with me. 



I ought also, I think, to say a few words as to the nature of the 

 country in which my observations were made. The Ahmedabad 

 Zilla, or that part of it in which I saw all the birds (except the Jungle 

 Fowls) treated of in this article, consists almost entirely of a great 

 plain of very light sandy soil, thickly populated, highly cultivated and 

 well wooded with scattered trees such as one sees in parks in this 

 country. Hersoll, which will be found mentioned several times, is a 

 large village about forty miles east of Ahmedabad and is just off" the 

 plain, and from there eastwards run long rolling sandy downs, in the 

 hollows between which are tanks and jeels and cultivated fields, but 

 on the tops of which grow only a few stunted bushes. On the other 

 hand westward from Ahmedabad the country, tho' remaining absolutely 



