met with a dozen or more coveys on the road in a morning's ride
between Coonoor and Ooty. They are tame little birds, and will
seldom rise when met with on a road unless hard pressed or
suddenly surprised; they content themselves with running on
ahead, occasionally stopping to pick up a grain or an insect,
until they think they are being too closely followed, when they
quietly slip out of sight into the first bit of cover they come to.
" When retreating, they keep uttering a very rapidly and
continually repeated note, in a very low tone, hardly to be
heard unless when one is quite close to them.
" When flushed they do, as a rule, rise, as Jerdon says, all
together, usually scattering in different directions, but this is by no
means invariably the case, and sometimes, even before a dog, they
will rise singly, or in couples, several minutes often intervening
between the rise of the first and last birds. With dogs they are
always easily flushed, but if there be no dog to press them,
after having been once disturbed, they will either lie very
close or dodge and run about amongst the bushes in a most
persistent and disheartening manner. I have occasionally
marked a bird into an isolated bush, which I have had to
kick and trample to pieces before the bird would rise.
" Their call is a series of whistling notes, commencing very
soft and low, and ending high and rather shrill, the first part of
the call being composed of single, the latter of double, notes
sounding something like tu-tu-tu-tu-tutu-tutu-tutu, &c. When
a covey has been flushed and scattered, one bird commences
after a few minutes calling in a very low tone, another immediately
taking it up, then another, and so on. They then begin
cautiously to reunite, uttering all the time their low note of
alarm, moving very slowly, with continual halts while in cover,
but dashing rapidly across any open space they may have to cross.
"When calling to each other after having been scattered, the
call is uttered in a very low tone, so that it appears to come
from a long distance off, though the bird may be within a few
feet of one. Perhaps the birds ventriloquize, and that it is not
only the lowncss of the tone that so misleads one.
" They are, of course, permanent residents on the Ni'lgiris
and in the Wynad, and, from my experience, I may go further
and say that they seldom wander far from the place in which
they were bred.
" They are very easily snared, the simplest way being to stretch
tightly a bit of string, say four or five yards long, and about six
inches above the ground, in any place frequented by the birds, and
to this string to suspend, closely placed side by side, a number
of horse-hair nooses, after sprinkling a little grain along both sides
of the line. The birds, in moving about from one side to the other,
picking up the grain, get the nooses round their necks, and soon
strangle themselves ; but this ruins the birds as specimens, as the
noose always cuts the birds' necks, and often nearly severing the
head from the body ; they can also be easily taken by a fall net,
or in any other way in which ground birds are captured."
Miss Margaret Cockburn says :—
" Painted Bush-Quails are very numerous about Kdtagiri,
where I live, and other places in the Ni'lgiris, and are always
met with in flocks. They run with such rapidity, that they look
like little brown balls rolled along the ground. These Quails feed
on small grain and insects. They do not migrate from the hills.
" Like all the genus, they are pugnacious, and both males
and females (?) have desperate battles, which often end in the
death of one or more.
" The natives often rear these Quails as decoy birds. They
make small square bamboo cages. In the centre is a small
square compartment, in which the decoy bird (male or female)
is confined. Little bars run from each corner of this inner
compartment to the inner corner of the cage, thus dividing
the space which runs all round the former into four verandahs,
if I may use the word. The outer sides of these, in fact of
the cage itself, let down, and are so arranged that, by the
pressure of the bird's feet on the bars, which form the floor of
the verandah, they start up again, and enclose whatever is in
that particular verandah. Spring cages of this nature are in
use, I believe, in many parts of India, though the arrangements
for springing the sides vary a good deal.
" The cage, the spring sides duly set, is placed on the ground
in some locality where the wild birds are common. The owner
hides himself behind a bush, and begins to imitate the bird's
note by whistling like them. Instantly his own bird begins to
call, and the wild ones all around answer it. In a few minutes
these surround the cage, and rush into the verandahs to get
at the decoy bird ; the spring sides fly up and close with a
click, and the would-be combatants are captured. Hearing the
sound, the Quail-catcher runs out, transfers the captured bird
to his netted bag, re-sets the spring sides, and repeats the
process.
" Sometimes, in addition to the spring cage, a small bamboo
frame-work of varying length, and three or four inches in
height, is placed upon the ground in a zig-zag shape, partly or
entirely surrounding the cage, and distant from it two or three
feet. This little fence is pierced by numerous apertures (just
large enough to allow the bird to pass), to each of which is
attached a horse-hair noose. As this Quail prefers creeping
through any hole to flying over any obstacle, however low,
many which escape the spring cage are caught in the nooses.
" When the natives come across a very young brood, they
catch two or three of them, and put them into a hole about a
foot deep, which they dig in the ground. The parent birds,
finding that the young ones cannot come out to them, very soon
drop into the hole, when the native, who has been watching from