to migrate to Bengal, the United
Provinces, the Punjab and Sind shortly before the monsoon bursts, but
it is said to arrive in Nepal as early as April. It would seem to
winter in South India. It is a smaller bird than the ordinary grey
quail and has no pale cross-bars on the primary wing feathers. The
males of this species are held in high esteem by Indians as fighting
birds. Large numbers of them are netted in the same way as the grey
quail. Some captive birds are set down in a covered cage by a
sugar-cane field in the evening. Their calls attract a number of wild
birds, which settle down in the sugar-cane in order to spend the day
there. At dawn a net is quietly stretched across one end of the field.
A rope is then slowly dragged along over the growing crop in the
direction of the net. This sends all the quail into the net.
Very fair sport may be obtained in July by shooting rain-quail that
have been attracted by call birds.
July marks the end of one breeding season and the beginning of
another. As regards the nesting season, birds fall into four classes.
There is the very large class that nests in spring and summer. Next in
importance is the not inconsiderable body that rears up its broods in
the rains when the food supply is most abundant. Then comes the small
company that builds nests in the pleasant winter time. Lastly there
are the perennials--such birds as the sparrow and the dove, which nest
at all seasons. In the present month the last of the summer nesting
birds close operations for the year, and the monsoon birds begin to
lay their eggs. July is therefore a favourable month for bird-nesting.
Moreover, the sun is sometimes obscured by cloud and, under such
conditions, a human being is able to remain out of doors throughout
the day without suffering much physical discomfort.
With July ends the normal breeding season of the tree-pies,
white-eyes, ioras; king-crows, bank-mynas, paradise flycatchers, brown
rock-chats, Indian robins, dhayals, red-winged bush-larks, sunbirds,
rollers, swifts, green pigeons, lapwings and butcher-birds.
The paradise flycatchers leave Northern India and migrate southwards a
few weeks after the young birds have left the nest.
Numbers of bulbuls' nests are likely to be found in July, but the
breeding time of these birds is rapidly drawing to its close. Sparrows
and doves are of course engaged in parental duties; their eggs have
been taken in every month of the year.
The ne
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