mm EJUKIH rami 1 »
Microperdix blewitti, Hume.
Vernacular ITames.—[Sirsee-lawa, Mandla, B&laghdi, Chinda ; \
LL defined as is the range of the Painted Bush-Quail,
still more so is that of its eastern congener. This
latter has been procured in Sirguja of Chota Nagpore,
in the Raipur, Sambalpur, Bhandara, Balaghat,
Mandla, and Seoni districts of the Central
Provinces, and the southern part of the Narsinghpur
district, and it extends to the Denwa valley below
the Pachmarhi liills and the Sal forests of Dclakhari.
" I t is very abundant," writes Mr. R. Thompson, "in the
Chanda district throughout the southern and eastern portions,
in Sironcha and the Godavari valley. It is found also in
Bastar on all the larger nallas and rivers, and spreads up on
to the Bela-Dila plateau, which has an elevation of 3,Coo feet."
Mr. Ball also got it in the Bastar States, in Nawagarh and
Kurial.
Nothing further absolutely is as yet known of its distribution,
which, however, we may conclude to embrace the hilly
tracts in the western portions of Chota Nagporc, and the
eastern half of the Central Provinces, including the Feudatory
States attached to the latter.
It is, of course, like its congener, an essentially Indian form.
I KNOW nothing of its habits, which we may presume to be
precisely similar to those of its better known congener, but Mr.
F. R. Blewitt, to whom I first owed specimens, and after whom
I named it, writes to me about it as follows:—
" This really pretty Bush-Quail is extensively distributed
throughout the forest tracts and scrub jungle bordering the
various low hill ranges in the districts of Raipur and Bhandara,
and more sparsely in similar localities in the southwestern
sections only of the Sambalpur district. I do not
believe it exists in the other half, at least, my men and I never
secured a specimen. It also affects, at certain seasons, grass
patches and fields near hills or jungle.