Page:The Common Birds of Bombay.djvu/174

158 This is a very long preface, but in truth there is little else to be said, for the gallinaceous order is almost unrepresented among the wild birds of Bombay. From a sporting paper that once flourished amongst us it appears that, in the early years of the century, when a Griffin arrived, it was considered a good joke to lend him a couple of pariah dogs, with ears and tails cropped, and send him to Old Woman's Island (i.e. Colaba) to shoot Partridges; but I do not know whether the point of the joke was that there were Partridges in Old Woman's Island or that there were none. There are none now. On the other side of the harbour the Painted Partridge (Francolinus pictus) is still found and would be plentiful if so many were not snared during the breeding season for the Bombay market. I caught one once on Cumballa Hill, or rather my dog did, but it had evidently escaped from the hands of the executioner. The Grey Quail and the Rain Quail spread everywhere during the cold season, but there is scarcely an acre of ground left in Bombay on which they could find a living. There is one bird, however, of that family which can still make itself happy among us. I mean the Rock Bush Quail, as Jerdon calls it (Perdicida asiaticci), though it is rather a miniature Partridge than a Quail. It is a globular bird, about the size of a cricket ball, and nearly the same colour from the point of view from which it is generally seen. That is when you put up a covey out of a bush, and it explodes like a shell, the fragments flying in all directions. They do not fly far, but drop into bushes again and crouch for a while in silence. Then one and another utters