O N L Y ON ONE occasion, and then on the desolate steeps of one
of the high passes leading from the valley of the Indus to the
head of the l'angong Lake, have I ever seen this handsome
Partridge alive.
This was in June, at an elevation of perhaps 17,000 feet,
and not very far below the then snow line.
The birds were in pairs, apparently far from wild, but
absolutely invisible when amongst the bare stones and rocks,
and I should certainly have passed them unnoticed, but for
their vociferous calls, which seemed to me so like those of our
English bird, that I took some trouble in searching the neighbourhood
with the dogs. I put up several pairs, and shot three
or four. I noticed that when flushed they only flew a short
distance, and that their whirring rise and flight were precisely
that of the European bird and very different from that of the
Chukor.
The entire aspect of the hill side where these birds were
found was dreary and desolate to a degree—no grass, no bushes,
only here and there, fed by the melting snow above, little
patches and streaks of mossy herbage, on which, I suppose, the
birds must have been feeding. But, alas for the depravity of
uneducated human nature, I never took the trouble to measure
them or ascertain what they had fed on, content, in my ignorance,
that a few days later they fed me, and proved excellent
eating.
The vertical range in the Himalayas is probably from 12,000
to 19,000 feet, according to season and the local height of the
snow line, but further north they descend to somewhat lower
levels, and seem to affect less inhospitable tracts.
Prjcvalsky says :—-
" Wo found this bird in the alpine regions of Kansu (it docs
not extend further northwards), principally in the rhododendron
thickets about the sources of the Tutunga, where the mountains
are covered with small tufts of Potentilla tenuifolia. It descends
to the plains, which, however, arc not at a lower elevation than
10,000 feet above the sea level.
" Its habits arc very similar to those of Pcrdix barbata, only
the voice is different. When taking to wing, it utters a more
squeaking but louder note than this latter, and its call-note is
also harsher."
I have never beard the note of P. barbata ; but this is little
more than a variety of our English bird, and I should say that,
though it may sound louder amid the stillness of the high
mountains, the note of the present species is very similar to
that of P. cincrca.
Lieut. W. J. Smith, then of the 75th, quoted by Gould, says,
that he procured his specimen, a male, which Gould figures (B. of
As. P. IX., pi. 2) near the Pangong lake:—" I found it with its
covey of young ones, which were just out of the shells. Some
THE TIBETAN PARTRIDGE. 67
of the chicks hid themselves under the rock on which I was
T? , d b i r d c a m e n e a r e n o u S h t o b e kiHcd with a
stctc. it made a great noise, ran remarkably fast, and did not
take wing until very hard pressed. The hills in the neighbourhood
were of a rugged and barren character and destitute of
forests and brushwood for about 100 miles."
MAJOR BARNES, the only European, so far as I know, who has
ever taken the nest within our limits, wrote to me about it thus :—
" This is what you may rely on, as I noted the facts at the
time. I flushed the bird myself off the nest on the 12th
July 1872. The nest was at an observed elevation of
16,430 feet. I think (but am not now quite sure) that the nest
was a mere indentation in the ground ; it was in grass amongst
low dwarf bushes. It contained ten eggs, all perfectly fresh.
The pass on which I found the nest leads from the l'angong
valley to the Indus valley, and is very high. I did not take
the elevation, but estimated it at 19,000 feet, as my camp, after
crossing the summit and descending some considerable distance,
was pitched that night at 17,745 feet. There was a great deai
of snow on the summit, which is perpetual; the snow-line at
that season I should say was about 18,500 feet. The name of
the pass is the Oong Lung La. The birds were neither scarce
nor plentiful, but there were enough to make the obtaining
a specimen, if required, a matter of certainty."
Of these eggs I have only one. This is in shape a long oval,
obtuse at one end and sharply pointed at the other. The shell
is hard, compact, and everywhere closely pitted with minute
pores, but it is very smooth notwithstanding, and has a very
fair amount of gloss. The ground is a pale drab, or clay
colour, but the whole of the large end has a faint reddish brown
tinge, as has also the extreme point of the smaller end.
The egg measures 1 7 7 in length by V2 in breadth.
Prjcvalsky tells us that:—
" The number of eggs in one clutch is about fifteen, or perhaps
even more. At the end of August the young were only
about half as large as their parents, which latter were moulting
fast at that time.
" In the beginning of April we re-visited Kansu, and found
these birds already paired ; but the females were not sitting
even in the beginning of May, although some eggs were
deposited."
F O R MANY many years now I have endeavoured to obtain
measurements in the flesh and an accurate record of the colours
of the soft parts of this species ; but though, thanks to Messrs.
Wilson, Mandelh and others, I have received several specimens
these were all collected by natives; and the only exact information