finding of their nests during July and August. This too is the
season in which they lay in Guzerat, and it was during these
months that Colonel Tickell says he had eggs brought him in
l'urulia (Western Bengal). Mr. W. Theobald found the nest
at Monghyr in the first week in June. In the Panch Mahals
Mr. Davidson took a nest with four hard-set eggs in the middle
of November. Two nests were sent me from Salem taken in
August. Jcrdon says :—
" In the Carnatic this bird breeds from July to September,
further south from June to August, and in Ceylon, says Layard,
from February to August."
Sometimes this species makes no nest at all, and merely
scratches a hollow at the base of, or in the midst of, some tuft
of Sirpatta grass, or occasionally some little dense bush adjoining
or surrounded by long grass. Sometimes it makes a little
pad of grass, rather soft dry grass, three, or at most four, inches in
diameter and half an inch in thickness, which it places as a lining
to the hollow. Now and then I am informed that, when laying
during heavy rain, it constructs a sort of hood or dome over the
nest.
Generally, it docs scratch a hollow for itself, but at times
natural hollows or the hoof-prints of cattle arc accepted
and used, with or without a lining, without so much as a trace
of the lazy little bird's feet being visible. I surprised a female,
conspicuous by her black throat and breast, in the act of
scratching a nest hole—a hole she laid in next day—and I therefore
believe the native account,which attributes the construction of
the nest to the hen ; but when they continue that, as soon as the
clutch is complete, the female drives the reluctant male on to
the eggs, and thereafter gives him a tremendous thrashing if
ever she catches him away from these, I am bound to say that
I suspend my opinion. True, an old Mughul Shikari, whom I
employed when I was in the Mcerut 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 females' 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 whap'em the better they be
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 confirmation."
There is no doubt that the normal number of the eggs is four ;
out of thirty-odd nests examined by myself and others, only
one contained six, and two five eggs. Jerdon speaks of the eggs
as being from five to eight in number ; if eight eggs have ever
been found in a nest, it must have been where two hens, compelled
to share a single husband, and having therefore only one party
to sit on the eggs, agreed both to lay in one spot.
Captain Butler writes to me :—" I found a nest containing four
fresh eggs near Deesa on the 9TH August. I laid a horse-hair
noose on each side of the tuft of grass under which it was placed,
and on returning to the spot about a quarter of an hour later, I
found the cock bird snared and sitting upon the eggs, probably not
knowing that he was caught, as he did not move off the eggs
until I frightened him. The nest consisted of a small saucershaped
hole scratched under a low tuft of grass growing in an
open field, with scarcely another blade of grass near it. It
was lined with a thin loose pad of short pieces of dry grass
and thin bits of stick and fell to pieces in my hand. The eggs
are perfect miniature pegtops, being almost round at the large
end and very pointed at the small. They are remarkably large
for the size of the bird, of a dirty stone colour, densely covered
with brown and yellow specks, having good-sized blackish spots
and blotches sparingly scattered over the shell, principally
towards the large end. A few inky purple markings, as if below
the outer surface of the shell, are also visible. An equal mixture
of mustard, salt and pepper would give one a good idea of the
general colour of the eggs. They have scarcely any gloss.
" I found several other nests in a grass preserve in the same
neighbourhood on the following dates :—•
" July 28th, 1876, a nest containing 4 fresh eggs.
11 j> ,» 3 ,,
.1 3°th ,1 1, 3 n
Aug. 1st „ „ 4 „
4th „ „ 4 „
» 5T H » 11 4 „
11 6 T H 11 11 4 11
11 7>h „ „ 1
"All of these nests were exactly similar to the one I have described,
except that in most instances they were placed under a
tussock of grass instead of being out in the open."
With the Bustard-Quail we are presented with quite a new
type of egg, somewhat reminding us, no doubt, of those of the
Common Quail, but yet widely differing in colour and general
appearance. In shape the eggs vary from moderately broad
ovals, scarcely at all pointed towards the small end, to typical
peg-tops. The ground colour is greyish white, and they are very
thickly and minutely speckled all over with what a close examination
proves to be a mixture of minute dots of yellowish and
reddish brown and pale purple. Some eggs have absolutely no
markings except this minute dotting or stippling, but the majority
have spots and blotches more or less thinly speckled over the
surface (often only at the large end, always most thickly there)