THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, BURMA AND CEYLON. 829 
<a chance of right and left at ordinary grey partridge,, of which I did 
not fully avail myself, missing with my first, but killing a bird with 
my second barrel. 
“ The last shot, just before halting for a late breakfast, was in some 
ways a most satisfactory one. 1 remember I had just been trying 
to beat out a couple of See-see which had disappeared round a corner 
after running in front of me for a long way in the most impertinent 
manner. Before disappearing one had hopped up on to a mass of 
fallen earth at the foot of the cliff, his little neck stretched up to look 
back at me, in an attitude which reminded me at once of a cheeky 
boy “cocking a snook” at a jjoliceman round the corner before bolting, 
his whole j^erson exuding the essence of impertinence, and that was 
the last I ever saw of him. Where he went to Goodness only knows, 
-lust as we were giving it up a soft note caused me to look up in time 
to see two Imperial Sandgrouse coming straight up the nullah. They 
were moving at a great pace and neither showed a sign of being touch- 
ed as I fired ; but whilst following them ruefully with my eyes, I sud- 
denly saw one bird crumple up and fall stone dead about 150 yards 
behind me. 
“One Gadwal, one Sandgrouse, one grey partridge, some Blue llock 
and the nine See-see, which I had got by about 11 o’clock were the 
outward signs of a very pleasant morning in the Phandu nullah, a 
morning typical of the shooting obtainable round Peshawar in those 
days.” 
Opinions differ greatly as to the qualifications of the See-see for 
the table. Hume and some others describe them as dry, insipid and 
poor eating, others modify this and say they are “fair to middling”, 
whilst yet others consider them to be amongst the best of our Indian 
Partridges and Pheasants. 
They appear to be almost entirely vegetarian in their diet, subsist- 
ing largely on grass seeds, but doubtless they eat a few insects from time 
to time and undoubtedly eat ants freely, and of course termites. The 
young, when first hatched, are probably fed, as are all other partridges, 
principally on insects, and amongst insects for the main paid on ants. 
Their call is a loud double whistle, sounding like See-see or So-see 
and gives the birds their trivial name, but they have a low soft whistle 
which they utter when feeding in company or as a call to their young. 
Apparently the family coveys in which the See-see keeps during 
the summer and autumn often break up in the early winter when 
many birds are again seen singly or in pairs though other parties 
keep together until the end of March or early April when the business 
of preparing for the next brood commences in earnest. 
The Plate is a good one and represents our typical Indian bird. 
The third bird is a male in the attitude adopted when displaying to 
the female and, extraordinary as it seems, is quite true to life* 
(To he continued.') 
