THE BUSTARD-QUAIL 
Hume, one of the greatest ortiitholog^ists who ever lived, 
aptly remarked: "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 
fig-hting duels to preserve the chastity of their husbands, and 
these latter sitting meekly in tlie nursery and tending the 
young/* 
It is many years since these words were written and 
since then we have learnt much but even now there is a lot to 
be cleared up with reference to the hcmipodes' habits. May 
be the somewhat amusing native belief (Tudtan) quoted by 
Hume has a solid foundation— "as soon as the clutch [i,e, the 
set of eggs] is complete, the female drives the reluctant ma!e 
on to the eggs, and thereafter gives him a tremendous thrash- 
ing if ever she catches him away from these True, 
an old Mughul Shikari, whom I employed when I was in the 
Meerut district, used to aver that he had often watched the 
males feeding near their nests rush on to the eggs at the sound 
of the female's call, and sit there, looking as if they had not 
left the nest for at least a week, until the female appeared, 
walked once or twice round the nest, and strutted off again, 
calling vociferously, as much as to say * Lucky for you it's 
all right, my little friend ! * But this old ruffian was one 
,who held that ; — 
'A spaniel, a woman, a walnut tree, 
The more you wliap'em the better they he;' 
and these reminiscences of his, chiefly narrated (and perhaps 
concocted) in view to impressing on my youthful mind a 
wholesome lesson as to the lengths to which the female sex. 
if not kept under proper restraint, is apt to stray, must 
assuredly be set down as 'requiring conhrmation/ '* 
The Malays take advantage of the pugnacious habits of 
the hens and have an ingenious trap within which one bird is 
placed as a decoy. The wild females enter the trap to give 
combat to the decoy-bird and are caught. 
In conclusion we may state that the eggs which are usually 
four in number and are "pale-greyish olive, thickly spotted 
[43] 
