EXCEPT that it frequents more humid localities and everywhere
ascends mountains, the habits of the present species do not
differ materially from those of its Indian representative. It is,
however, perhaps even more essentially a bird of clearings
and gardens, especially gardens where there are clear lines
between rows of beans, sweet potatoes, and the like, up and down
which it can run. It is never found in dense forest or heavilywooded
tracts, and the countries it affects being so much
richer in low cover of all kinds, it is not so much a grass bird
as taigoor is.
It is almost always flushed singly, very rarely in pairs, never
in parties or coveys, except whilst the broods arc young, when one
old bird and four, or occasionally five, chicks may be put up
together.
In this species too the females rule the roast ; and in Malay
countries, as Sir Stamford Raffles correctly says, a hcn-pcckcd
husband is commonly called a " Pee- Yoo" in derision.
Grass seed and the tips of tender blades of grass are probably
its chief food ; but it also cats a variety of tiny seeds,
beetles, and other insects. It seems to be very little of a graincater.
Common as it is in gardens, it is rare to find it in
paddy fields or paddy stubbles.
I do not think that cither this or the Indian species drinks
much, if at all. I have never seen cither drinking nor heard of
any one who has, while the Pcrdictdas, Microperdix, &c, habitually
drink, and may often be caught in the act.
Like their Indian congeners they are terrible runners ; it takes a
small, very active dog to flush them, and when put up they are
scarcely well on the wing before they drop, as if shot, into some
thick bush or tuft of grass, whence they start off running again.
Without dogs you will never flush one-tenth of the birds,
even the first time ; and once a bird has made its flight (such
as it is), it is simply hopeless endeavouring to put it up a second
time by any ordinary beating. Like taigoor, too, they are
habitually very silent birds ; so far as I know, it is the females
alone who call, and these only during the breeding season.
Whether it is owing to their skulking habits and the greater
density, as a rule, of the low cover in the regions they frequent,
I cannot say; but they seem to me more sparsely distributed
than is the Indian bird. Of the latter you might in many places,
with good dogs and small charges, bag by hard work at least
a dozen, and possibly twenty, coupic in a day, whereas, from what
I know myself and from what I hear from others, I doubt whether
you could anywhere shoot even half this latter number of
phimbipts, fag as you might. They are, I think, more thinly
spread about the country.
LIKE THE preceding species, the Indo-Malayan Bustard-Ouail
is, to a small extent, migratory, ascending the hills higher
in summer and temporarily quitting flooded districts ; but for the
most part it lives all the year round and breeds in the same
immediate neighbourhood.
It lays at different periods in different localities, and possibly
has two broods in the year.
In Sikhim its nests are chiefly met with in May and June,
in the Dun during July and August, about Calcutta from early
in July to quite the end of September, in Tippcrah, Cachar and
Burma about the same period. In the south of the Malay
Peninsula Davison took eggs in March.
The nests are, as a rule, precisely similar to those of the Indian
species. I myself have never seen a domed or hooded nest of
cither species, though both undoubtedly construct such at
times. Four is the normal number of eggs laid, though five, and
even six occur, somewhat less rarely in this species than in the
last.
Captain Hutton remarks:—" On the 30th July the eggs were
taken in the Dun near the foot of the mountains. Colour
stone grey, irrorated with small specks of brown interspersed
with larger spots of neutral tint, which form an irregular ring
at the larger end. They measured rather less than an inch by
075. The number of eggs was four only, but the proper number,
according to Jerdon, far exceeds this. There was no nest,
but merely the usual scratched spot on the ground, with a little
dry grass and leaves, beneath a few stunted bushes. The
bird ascends in the summer to about 5,500 feet, and breeds there
also. It has a pleasing ringing note, and is brought in large
numbers for sale. It is very pugnacious, but is easily tamed."
From Sikhim, Mr. Gammie writes :—" I have found this bird
breeding in May and June in the Darjeeling District from 2,000
to 4,000 feet. It builds in the ground in open, cleared country,
by the sides of small shrubs or tufts of low grass. It sits very
close, and can easily be caught on the nest. The nest is usually,
though not always, hooded, loosely made of dry, half-rotten
grass, and measures externally about 4 inches in height to the
top of the hood by the same in width. The cavity is about 2 3^
inches in diameter and an inch in depth from lip of cup. The
eggs are four in number, and the young leave the nest directly
they arc hatched. The bird is common in the tea and cinchona
plantations, and,—in wet weather especially,—greatly frequents
the roads, only rising when almost stepped on. It is a source
of great annoyance to timid ponies, rising as it does with a whir
from under their noses. It is a very solitary bird, rarely more
than one being seen at a time. I am not certain that it is migratory,
but cannot recollect ever observing it during the cold season."
The eggs of this species very closely resemble those of the
Indian bird ; and though they seem to average somewhat longer
and narrower and to be as a body browner and darker, with more
numerous and larger black blotches, some of those that I have