Turnix plumbipes, Hodgson.
VomaClllar Na-321GS.—[Timokpho (I.epcha) ; Tiniok (Bhutia) ; Nn.on (Burmese),
Pegu ; Puyoh, IVeyoo-Kubun (Malay) ; Gnoke-coone, Nock-kune (Siamese),
Malay Peninsula ; ]
HE Indo-Malayan Bustard-Quail is found throughout
the Deltaic districts of Lower Bengal* in the Bhutan
Duars and the Sikhim Tcrai, and thence westwards
in all the submontane Duns, Terais, Bhabars, and
other well-watered, more or less jungly, tracts that lie
within a compass of fifty miles or so from the
bases of the Himalayas, at any rate as far as where
the Jumna debouches from these. Again, in all the warmer
valleys and lower ranges of these mountains, it is met with up to
an elevation of five or six thousand feet (in places even higher),
as far wrest as the valley of the Tonse. Further, it occurs everywhere
east of the Ganges, in Tippcrah, Chittagong, Cachar,
Sylhet, the Assam valley as high up at least as close to Dibrugarh,
and the Garo and Khasia Hills.
Eastwards it is common in many parts of Aracan, Pegu,-f- and
Tenasserim, from the extreme north to the extreme south of
each.
Outside our limits, this species certainly occurs in Independent
Burma, Western Yunan, the Shan States, and Western Siam. I
believe too that the Sumatran species is identical, but I had not
properly studied these Bustard-Quails when I examined the
only Sumatran specimen I have seen, and I cannot now be
certain of the fact.
I have never seen Javan specimens, but I rely on the Marquess
of Tweeddale's decision that the Javan pttgnax differs
from our Burmese and Malayan birds.
« It is extremely common about Calcutta. From first to last. Mr. T. C. Parker and
myself ha' e take/fully a dozen nests of this species in the liotamcal Gardens there.
« LOUN?u!rou8hoeut:THE province OF Pegu both in hills a*1 plains It is a bird OF
the jungle? and but rarely found in the open. It is a constant.resident; according to
my experience, it is nowhere sufficiently common to afford spoil.