. Indian sporting birds . cock is distinguished from the hen by having awhite throat and eyebrow^s, and black face, chin and cap, thehead in the hen being, like the belly in both sexes, of a chestnutcolour. In young cocks the black cap is the first sex-mark to approaching the thick-billed bush-quails rather thanthe typical quails, this bird has a smaller beak, no indications ofspurs, and rises with less of a whirr. It is found on the hills of Southern India, the Nilgiris,Pulneys, and Shevaroys, and ranges up the Western Ghauts as faras Bombay. It is also to be found in hillj^ t
. Indian sporting birds . cock is distinguished from the hen by having awhite throat and eyebrow^s, and black face, chin and cap, thehead in the hen being, like the belly in both sexes, of a chestnutcolour. In young cocks the black cap is the first sex-mark to approaching the thick-billed bush-quails rather thanthe typical quails, this bird has a smaller beak, no indications ofspurs, and rises with less of a whirr. It is found on the hills of Southern India, the Nilgiris,Pulneys, and Shevaroys, and ranges up the Western Ghauts as faras Bombay. It is also to be found in hillj^ tracts east of theseGhauts, and has strayed even to Poona. In habits it is a bush-quail, not a typical quail; it frequents the outskirts of jungle androcky ground interspersed with low cover, and associates incoveys, the members of which generally all go off together, but indifferent directions, when flushed. Sometimes, however, theyrise independently and at intervals of several minutes; unless—_ ,_ * Perdicula on PAINTED BUSH-QUAIL 257 hunted out by a dog, however, they very strongly object torising twice. Their call, according to Davison, is a series of whistlingnotes, commencing very soft and low, and ending high andrather shrill, the first part of the call being composed of singleand the latter of double notes, sounding sometimes like tu-tu-tu-tii-tutu-tutu-tutu, &c. By the use of this call, given low andcautiously at first, the scattered covey is reunited again ; the callseems to have something of the ventriloquial character. They resemble the thick-billed bush-quails in being veryquarrelsome in spite of their sociability, so that they are readilycaptured in a trap-cage with a call-bird in the inner ferocity of some of these harmless-looking little game-birds,and their powers of hurting each other, are indeed remember once seeing one of this species put into a cage wherethere were others, and after being left unwatched for only a fewmi
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Keywords: ., boo, bookauthorfinnfrank18681932, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910
