The BLACK-BREASTED BUSTARD QUAIL (_Turnix pugnax_), a well-known species
of the above group, has the foot furnished with only three toes. The
feathers on the mantle are of a dark brown tipped with crescent-shaped
black and rust-red spots; the region of the eye, bridles, and cheeks are
white, spotted with black; the wings are greyish brown, spotted with black
and white; the quills are edged with white on the outer web; the throat is
deep black, and the lower breast and belly bright rust-red; the rest of
the plumage resembles that of the male. The eye is white, the beak light
grey, and the foot dark yellow. This species is six inches long; the wing
measures three inches, and the tail one inch. The female is considerably
larger than her mate.
This interesting bird, which has long been a domestic favourite with the
Hindoos and Malays, is very common in Java, where, as everywhere else, it
frequents grassy patches in the forests and jungles, low bushy jungle, or
fields of _dhal_ and other thick crops near patches of brushwood; but it
is rarely found in barren country, or in cultivated ground where there
is no shelter. It feeds on various kinds of grain, small insects, and
grasshoppers. The call of the female is a peculiar, loud, purring sound.
"The hen birds," says Jerdon, "are most pugnacious, especially about the
breeding season; and this propensity is made use of in the south of India
to effect their capture. To this end a small cage with a decoy-bird is
used, having a concealed spring compartment made to fall by the snapping
of a thread placed between the bars of the cage. This is set on the ground
in some thick cover, carefully protected. The decoy-bird begins her loud
purring call, which can be heard a long way off, and any females within
earshot rapidly run to the spot and commence fighting with the caged
bird, striking at the bars. This soon breaks the thread, the spring-cover
falls, at the same time ringing a small bell, by which the owner, who
remains concealed near at hand, is warned of a capture, and at once runs
up, secures his prey, and sets his cage again in another locality. In this
way I have known twelve to twenty birds captured in one day in a patch of
jungle in the Carnatic, where only I have seen this practice carried on.
The birds that are caught in this way are all females, and in most cases
are birds laying eggs at the time, for I have frequently known instances
of some eight or ten of those captured so far advanced in egg-bearing
as to lay their eggs in the bag in which they were carried before the
bird-catcher had reached my house."
The eggs, which are usually laid in a hollow in the ground, behind a
bush, or sheltered by a stone, are from five to eight in number, of a
dull stone-grey or green tint, thickly spotted and freckled with dusky
yellowish brown; they are blunt in shape and very large in proportion to
the bird. The affection of the male of this species for its offspring
would appear to be by no means inferior to that of the mother; for we
learn from Swinhoe that upon one occasion, having succeeded in capturing
two young Bustard Quails that were almost fully fledged and placed them
in a cage, he observed the female parent, as he supposed, clucking like a
hen, as it ran and crept about the prisoners in a vain endeavour to lure
them out of their strange abode. In order to secure a specimen the bird
was shot, and on examination proved to be a male. The Javanese rear this
species on rice and small grasshoppers, and train both sexes to fight for
their entertainment.