bers, far exceeding what are ever seen in the downwards migration,*
because that occurs more or less in successive waves, while
the return journey across the Himalayas is made more en
masse.
Hut just as on the downwards journey some always remain in
the north, so on the return journey a good many at times remain
behind, at any rate for one or two months, in the south. Thus in
the Ucccan, long after the majority are luxuriating in our northern
wheat fields, a good many Grey Quail may still be seen, say,
in some years, to quite the end of April, or evento May. Here,
of course, I am referring to birds that do finally migrate ; a very
few, no doubt, remain even in parts of the Ucccan to breed, but
certainly not, as Sykcs-|' imagined, any large proportion of those
that occur there during the cold season.
In connection with the fact that a small number are to be
found breeding in many parts of Upper India, and occasionally
one here and there in Central India and even the Deccan, the
question arises,—are these birds the representatives of a permanently
resident race ? Do these same couples always remain to
breed in India? Or are they accidental "remainders" of the
migratory myriads ?—birds that, cither feeling unequal to the
journey, or finding themselves in peculiarly delectable quarters,
stop behind for that one season and that season only ?
In Southern Spain the local sportsmen profess to recognize
two distinct forms, the resident race criollas, lighter coloured and
somewhat smaller, and the migratory race castellanas, which are
larger and darker. In Eastern Turkestan there is a similar
idea, and some people say there also that they can distinguish
the birds that remain all the year round in the plains of
Yarkand and those that migrate to India.
Is any thing of this kind observable in India ? I think not.
In the first place, as I shall show further on, all our birds in
India appear to belong to one and the same race. In the
second, so far as my experience and enquiries enable me to
judge, our birds breed sporadically, sometimes here, sometimes
there, whereas, if the same birds always remained to breed,
they would breed year after year in the same place, which
has not been the case in any one single instance that I have
been able to investigate.
1, therefore, as at present advised, believe that in India generally,
including the lower outer ranges of the Himalayas, we have no
permanently resident race, only sporadic laggards, who, from
one cause or another, remain behind to breed as an exceptional
* In many places in Northern India they pass through so rapidly that their arrival
is hardly noticed in September.
•f He says (Trans. Zool. Soc. II., p. 12) " I never found them congregated in numbers
as if preparatory to emigration, and feci fully satisfied that the bird does not at
any season quit any part of India I have been in—"i.c, the Bombay Presidency,
clnclly the Deccan. Every modem observer in this same locality utterly denies the
correctness oí this assertion.
case; and I am confirmed in this view by the fact that, in the
only three cases within my knowledge in which the parent
birds belonging to nests found in this country were carefully
examined, one (in one case both) was found to bear shot-marks.
They migrate, I think, invariably by night, and probably in
immense masses. On one moonlight night, about the third week
in April, standing on the top of Benog,* a few miles from
Mussooree, a dense cloud, many hundred yards in length and
fifty yards I suppose in breadth, of small birds swept over me
with the sound of a rushing wind. They were not, I believe,
twenty yards above the level of my head, and their unmistakeable
call was uttered' by several of those nearest me as they
passed. I have never seen or heard of any one who has seen
them migrating by day. Over and over again have I found
a place in the early morning, on several occasions my own compound
(in which I had millets in autumn and wheat and barley
in spring), swarming with Quail where none had been on the
previous evening; and,per contra, a tract of stubble and halfcut
wheat, where I had shot till my head ached one day, has
(but for a few wounded birds) proved blank when examined
next morning.
Although Quails move in flocks, they never, except immediately
after the breeding season, keep in coveys as do the Bush-Quail,
There may be thousands in a single field, but each rises, flics,
and drops on his own account; and when Quail are scarce, at
any time from November to the end of February, you will as
often find a single bird as two, three or more in one place. In
March, I think, they begin pairing, for in that month and April,
if birds arc scarce, you generally find two, four or six in any
patch, not one or three or five.
They feed chiefly morning and evening, and may, if closely
looked for, be at times caught sight of for a few moments
bustling about, feeding in short stubbles, or thin low grass, or
in amongst clumps of the dwarf jujube bushes. They run
about stooping, picking here and there, now stopping to scratch,
now, as some sound reaches them, standing straight up with upstretched
necks, and again, alarmed, gliding out of sight, almost
like rats.
When they are in season, the millets are, I think, their chief
food ; but they eat all kinds of grain, grass-seeds, small fruits, like
those of the " Jharberi" and all kinds of small insects, especially
beetles, bugs, and ants.
During the middle of the day, particularly if the sun be hot,
they rest somewhere in the shade, and are then so unwilling to
rise that you may almost catch them by the hand, while dogs at
times actually do pounce on them. But except during the heat
of the day, although they are tame birds and allow a near
* Elevation I suppose 7,500 feet.