The western black francolin (F. £. francolinus) is fairly common 
in southern Turkey, south of the Taurus Mountains, and through Syria, 
Israel, and northern Iraq to southwest of Baghdad where it is very 
abundant. Peters (37) and Dementiev (13) also assign birds resident in 
Transcaucasia and about the southern half of the Caspian littoral to 
this subspecies. We found these birds very abundant in grain fields 
north of the Elbruz Mountains and east of Gurgan in Iran, and Diementiev 
indicates that they are found also farther north in southern Siberian 
Turkomen. 
The northern black francolin (F. f£. asiae), apparently crossing 
freely with F. £. henrici from southern West Pakistan north to Lahore 
and Chitral, extends northwestwards over the Khyber pass to Jalalabad 
in eastern Afghanistan. Babur (1), one of the Mogul emperors, reports 
black francolin to have been common in (all) Afghanistan about 1500. 
Another emperor, Jehangir (1) found many of these birds near Bakkar 
(Sind) in 1620. Progressing eastwards through northern India, specimens 
more typical of asiae dre the rule. Few birds are found east of Bahawal- 
pur or in the Sind or Thar desert area until one reaches Pali, east of 
Jodhpur. In central Nepal either this subspecies or F, £. melanonotus 
has extended its range through the Terai into the Central Valley 
(Ripley 41). 
Providing acceptable food, cover, and water are present, altitude 
plays but little part in the distribution of the black francolins. We 
have collected them from less than a hundred feet above sea level in 
Turkey, Iraq and about Karachi, and shot them while hunting for Kalij 
pheasants on terraced and cultivated hillsides at about 6,000 feet near 
Simla on the flanks of the Indian Himalayas, Hume reports them up to 
7,000 feet in Pakistan, Baluchistan and adjacent Afghanistan and 
Whistler (54) found them up to 8,500 feet near Simla. Higgins (24) found 
the Assam black francolin (F. £. melanonotus) in the valleys and hillsides 
along the Brahmaputra River and along the eastern hills of Manipur up to 
6,000 feet. Southeast of the Caspian Sea, they occur from below sea level 
up to about 3,000 feet in grassy areas interspersed with cultivation. 
Proud (38) reports these birds to be very common and increasing in num- 
bers on the hills about Kakani, Nepal at 5,000 to 7,000 feet. 
In good cover substantial numbers of black francolins may be found, 
In one fairly narrow band of tamarisk and grass thickets along the Tigris 
River below Baghdad local beaters put up over 60 birds for us in about two 
hours. From fields of sugarcane, wheat, mustard, weeds, and grass in 
India or Pakistan, it was not unusual to flush 30 to 50 black francolins 
and often a like number of gray francolins in a 4-hour beat. Hume writes 
-of places where he could make sure of bagging 50 brace of blacks in one 
day. Even so, possibly because of their greater cover selectivity, it is 
easier to overshoot black than gray francolins. 
