tit mmm mmmMm m
Francolinus pictus, Jardine and Selby.
. o
Vomaeular NamOS — [Kala titur, (Mahrathi) ; Titar, Poona, Sahara, &v. ;
Kakcra KoJi (Telegu).]
o ———
HE line indicated, when discussing the distribution in
India of the Black Partridge, as marking with a
close approximation to accuracy the southern limits
of that species, may be equally accepted as defining
the northern extension of the Painted Partridge.
South of this line, in Kathiawar, and close to
Dcesa itself, in Guzerat, Baroda, the Panch Mahals,
Khandesh, the Central India Agency, and Bundclkhand, Jhansi,
Saugor and the greater portion of the Central Provinces (including
the Eastern Feudatory States) and Bcrar, in the Nizam's
Territory, the Bombay Presidency generally south of Khandesh,
almost to its southernmost limits, and the central and northern
portions of the Madras Presidency, this species is widely, but
very locally, distributed.
Captain T. M. Ward tells me that he has shot it at Kalyan
and on the island of Salsette, but that it is absent from the
Southern Konkan, Goa, and from the greater part of North
Kanara, " where," writes Mr. Elphinston, for many years there
stationed, " except along its eastern border, the forest is too thick
both above and below the Ghats."*
It also avoids the western portions, at any rate, of the Poona
and Satara districts, though in the eastern portions of the
latter, viz., Tasgaon, Khanapur, and Jath, it is, Mr. Vidal says,
* On this head, Col. Peyton, for years the crack shot of the Southern Mahratta
country, writes to me :—
"The Painted Partridge is found in Kanara in the grass and low jnngle along
the Kanara border, touching the Belgaum, Dhaiwar and Mysore open country. I
have never seen it below the Ghats or in heavy forests, neither have I seen it along
the Ghats anywhere except on some rather extensive old Kiunri {i.e. cultivation by
burning down the jungle) tracts in the Sirsi and Siddapur Talukas that are bare
of everything save grass. There it is most unmistakably to be found, and along
the very crest of the Ghats too, as any one acquainted with their peculiar call and
habit of getting up into solitary trees or rising places to send forth their challenge
would at once discover if passing along in this direction in March."