Perdicula asiatica (Lath.).
The Jungle Bush-Quail.

Perdicula cambayensis (Lath.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 581.
Perdicula asiatica (Lath.), Hume, Cat. no. 826.

This species appears to lay from September to February. The nest, always placed on the ground under the shelter of some bush or tuft of grass, is of moderate size, circular and shallow, more or less fitted into a corresponding depression of the soil and more or less neatly constructed of grass and roots. Five to seven eggs seem to be the full complement; in one case a clutch of only four eggs was hard-set.

Colonel Butler writes:- " Six eggs were brought to me on the 19th September, 1880, taken by my nest-seekers about 7 miles west of Belgaum, belonging to this species, and two more nests containing four and five fresh eggs respectively were brought to me from the same locality on the 14th October. Subsequently I found a nest myself near the same place containing eggs exactly similar, from which I shot the old bird, and another nest of five incubated eggs on the 23rd November. The eggs are very similar to those of P. argoondah, but slightly larger, and some of them have a few faint reddish-brown specks scattered over the large end.

" This species is the only Bush-Quail in that locality, so there can be no mistake about the eggs. Mr. J. Davidson sent me an egg he took at Taloda, Khandesh, 14th October  the same year."

Mr. Vidal, writing from the S. Konkan, says ; - " I found a nest with two fresh eggs on the 17th January, 1879. The eggs were much pointed at one end.   These are of si pale cafe-au-lait tint.

The eggs are regular ovals, more or less pointed (but never pronouncedly so) towards one end, have a faint gloss, and are in colour a spotless creamy white varying to a very pale eafe-au-lait tint.

They vary from 096 to 1.1 in length and from 0.79 to 0.9 in breadth; but the average of seventeen eggs is 1.0 by 0.83.

* I omit A. torqueola from this edition as Mr. Hume has since pointed out that the eggs which he attributed to this species in the ' Rough Draft' did not belong to it --ED.