Francolinus vulgaris. Steph
The Black Partridge.

Francolinus vulgaris (Steph.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 658; Hume, Rough Draft N. & E. no 818.

The Black Partridge or Common Francolin breeds in suitable localities throughout India Proper (excluding Burma) north of an imaginary line drawn from the Runu of Cutch to Gwalior and from Gwalior to Ganjam. I believe that this line as nearly as possible indicates the boundaries of the areas of distribution of this and the next species ; and though in some few places F. pictus does, I believe, straggle a little northwards of this artificial line, I do not think that the present species anywhere crosses it southwards.

It ascends the exterior ranges of the Himalayas throughout their whole length to elevations of 5000 or 6000 feet, but it does not, so far as my experience goes, cross the first Snowy Range. The Himala3'an birds, it may be wed to note, average smaller and are perhaps more brightly coloured than those of the plains of Upper India and Sind, but they are in no way specifically separable.

Grass, tamarisk, or similar jungle are essential to the Black Partridge, and they will rarely be found at any great distance from these two requisites. During parts of the year they seem to make their homes in densely-cropped cultivated lands, but it will always be where jungle to which they can retreat, when the crops are cut, is within reach.

They lay mostly, I think, in June; a few lay somewhat earlier and later (I have found eggs in August), making their nests on the ground in tamarisk or grass jungle, or in any thick crop near these that may be standing (and there are few such) at that season; of these the small millets reaped in some parts of the country in July are perhaps most often resorted to.

The nest, composed of grass and grass-roots, dry bamboo, grass-flag, or sugarcane-leaves, is sometimes very slight and loose, sometimes neater and more substantial; usually it is placed in a depression hollowed out by the bird, and again not infrequently there is scarcely any nest, only a lining to a hollow. It is always perfectly concealed.

They lay from six to ten eggs ; at any rate I have never known more to be found, and in former days, when shooting in the Ganges Kadir and the Terai in the hot weather, the beaters and dogs used to find nests daily, and I have thus seen a great many.

Captain Hutton remarks; - "This is a common bird in the Dhoon, and by no means rare in warm cultivated valleys far in the hills. It breeds in the hills in June, and a nest taken by a friend on whose accuracy I can rely, and who shot the old bird, contained six eggs of a dull greenish-white colour. The egg appears very large for the size of the bird, and tapers very suddenly to the smaller end."

Dr. Jerdon says:- "The hen Partridge breeds from May to July, laying ten or twelve eggs (sometimes, it is stated, as many as fifteen) of a pale bluish-white colour, according to some writers; but those I have seen were pale greenish when first laid ; and she usually has her nest in the grass, sometimes in an indigo-field, and occasionally in a sugarcane-field."

Mr. Cripps found a nest with five fresh eggs, in the Western Duars, on -the 16th July.

Typically the eggs are what I should call sphero-conoidal in shape, that is to say, broad blunt cones based on hemispheres. In colour and in shape they very much resemble specimens of the eggs of our Common Pheasant (P. colchicus) which I have from England. They are of course smaller, but by no means so much so as the relative difference in the sizes of the two birds would lead one to expect. They are moderately glossy and perfectly unspotted, and the colour varies from a slightly greenish to a brownish fawn-colour, or in some, as I ought perhaps to call it, stone-colour. Some of the eggs might perhaps be best described as drab-coloured.

The eggs vary greatly in size, from 1.36 to 1.8 in length, and from 1.18 to 1.38 in breadth; but the average of seventy is 1.56 by 1.28.