Probably, being a ground bird, the young are killed by stoats,
jackals, and other vermin, and the mother is not of sufficient
size to defend them. It seems to have a second brood sometimes.
" It remains entirely on the ground, as a rule, except the cock
when calling, when he will at times get on to a stump or ant
hill ; but up the Tonse Valley, and in the Rama Serai, in Native
Garhwal, I have seen them high up in chir trees (Pinus
longifolia.}
" From its breeding so slowly it is easily shot off, and I have
known a place almost cleared in one season. The Western
Dun has been served in that way. Formerly 25 brace could be
bagged there, but now, if a man flushes five brace in a day, he
has done well.
" All sportsmen who like Black Partridge shooting should
kill all vermin they see about its haunts.
" This bird gets tame readily, and even when caught full
grown, will eat the day it is caught. It affords some of the
finest sport of all small game, and with steady dogs one may
have grand shooting. It may be found in all crops, but
especially in cotton fields freshly sown, wheat, rice and mustard,
and in wild hemp. It runs a good deal at times, but will lay
like a stone if headed ; it is never found far from grass jungles.
" Some hens have spurs of the same size and shape as the
cocks.
" It is kept tame by the natives, and used for the capture of
wild ones in the breeding season. The mode of using it is to
put it in a cage out near wild ones in the pairing season and
to set snares round the cage. The tame ones then call up the
wild ones, but only cocks are caught in this way, and the tame
one must be a young one reared by hand, as if caught when old
it will not call.
" Netting is largely used to capture this bird, and on one
occasion I wanted some birds to stock a bit of forest, and a
man caught two score of birds in a very short time.
" I never heard of this bird being used for fighting ; it is merely
kept as a call bird or as a pet."
A L T H O U G H IN T H E autumn and the early part of the cold
weather individuals of this species, young birds especially,
straggle considerable distances from the jungles that constitute
their homes, still, broadly speaking, we may say that the Black
Partridge is a permanent resident and breeds wherever it occurs.
The only thing approaching migration that I have observed
in the case of this species, is the upward move which many of
them make in the Himalayas and other lesser ranges in spring.
In the winter I doubt if many Francolins would anywhere be
found above an elevation of 3,000 feet, while during the summer,
in the Himalayas at any rate, they are common at 6,000 feet ;
and I have shot them a thousand, and indeed perhaps fifteen
hundred, feet higher.*
They breed, therefore, from an elevation of at least 6,000 feet
down to nearly sea level.
They lay mostly, I think, towards the end of June and during
the first half of July; a few lay somewhat earlier and later
(I have found eggs in August). They make their nests on the
ground in tamarisk or grass jungle, or in any thick crop near
these that may be standing (and there are few such) at that
season ; of these, the small millets reaped in some parts of the
country in July are perhaps most often resorted to.
The nest, compo.sed of grass and grass-roots, dry bamboo,
grass-flag, or sugarcane leaves, is sometimes very slight and
loose, sometimes neater and more substantial ; usually it is
placed in a depression hollowed out by the bird, and again, not
unfrequently, there is scarcely any nest, only a lining to a hollow.
It is always perfectly concealed, and without good dogs hard
to find.
They lay, according to my personal experience, from six to
ten eggs. At any rate I have never known more to be found, and
in former days, when shooting in the Ganges Kadar and the
Tarai in the hot weather, the beaters and dogs used to find nests
daily ; and in the hills also I have seen many.
Captain Hutton remarks:—"This is a common bird in the
Dun, and by no means rare in warm cultivated valleys far
in the hills. It breeds in the hills in June, and a nest taken
by a friend, on whose accuracy I can rely, and who shot the old
bird, contained six eggs of a dull greenish white colour. The
egg appears very large for the size of the bird, and tapers very
suddenly to the smaller end."
Dr. Jerdon says :—" The hen Partridge breeds from May to
July, laying ten or twelve eggs (sometimes, it is stated, as many
as fifteenf) of a pale bluish white colour, according to some
writers ; but those I have seen were pale greenish when first
laid ; and she usually has her nest in the grass, sometimes in
an indigo field, and occasionally in a sugarcane field."
Mr. Cripps writes to me :—" I found a nest in the Western
Duars on the 16th July, containing five perfectly fresh eggs. At
the foot of a tuft of grass was a hollow of the size of a soup
plate, which the birds had partially lined with roots and blades
of grass, and in this were laid the eggs. All around was a
dense growth, three feet high, of grasses and weeds. The ground
* Writing from Kullu, Mr. Young says : " In one of the lateral valleys of the
Parbutti, however, it is found on a sloping plateau in Herkundi Kothi, at an elevation
of fully 7,000 feet.
t Although frequently laying as many as ten eggs, at any rate, I agree with Mr.
Greig that it is extremely rare to see any thing like this number of three-parts grown
birds with the old ones. I have seen six or seven, but I dare say three or four would
be nearer the average of three-parts grown broods.