Colonel Tickcll and other writers assert that the Kalij is polygamous.
This may be the case in some places, but I can only
say that hundreds of times in August and September I have
put up a pair with their young brood, and that from May to
October I have rarely found an old female without finding a
male somewhere near, and vice versd.
In a wild state this Pheasant sometimes interbreeds with
other species. I myself shot a male which could only have been
a cross with a Koklass, and, what is still more surprising, Col.
Fisher writes :—"I once came across a bird of this species with
the head, neck, and crest of a Kalij, but the back and alternate
feathers of the tail most unmistakcably those of the Moonal.
I skinned the bird and made the specimen over to an English
Naturalist some 20 years ago."
TlIE COMMON KALIJ breeds everywhere in the Himalayas,
south of the first snowy ranges (and occasionally in the
Dhuns and Tarais that fringe their bases and in the Siwaliks)
from the borders of Afghanistan to those of Nepal,
I have found eggs in the Dhun as early as the 4th April, and
at Simla as late as the 20th June. They breed at all elevations
from the level of the Tarai (where it may be 1,200 feet above
the sea-level) up to fully 8,000 fect.
They are not very particular as to choice of locality, but more
or less inhabited and thinly forest-clad tracts, with pretty
dense undergrowth, arc usually chosen ; little densely-bushed
watercourses on the sides of hills, moderately thickly or somewhat
thinly covered with oak and rhododendron forest, and in
the neighbourhood of fields, being much affected.
The Common Kalij hardly forms a regular nest. It usually
gets together a sort of pad, sometimes rather massive, more
commonly very slight, of dead leaves, fine grass and coarse
moss-roots, mingled with a little grass or a few sprigs of
moss, and in a slight depression in the centre of this it
lays its eggs. One which I measured in situ in May 1871,
in the valley of the Sutlej just below Kotgarh, was circular,
I I '5 inches in diameter and 4 in thickness outside, with a
central depression 6 inches wide and nearly 2 inches in depth in
t h e centre. Others, again, have been mere linings to a slight
hollow in the ground, either natural or scratched by the birds ;
I have seen a great many nests of this species, and they were
generally very scanty. The nest is usually well concealed under
tufts of fern (they are very fond of fern-clad hill sides), grass,
or " ringal," as the natives call the slender dwarf hill-bamboos.
I have never found more than nine eggs myself, but I have
had ;ts many as thirteen brought me by natives, said to have
been found in one nest. As a rule, I do not think they lay more
than nine eggs, and certainly one rarely sees more than eight or
nine young birds with a pair of old ones.
The female sits for rather over three weeks, and during this
period may often be captured by hand or seized by a dog on
her nest. The male is always close at hand, and if the hen be
disturbed by a dog, will fly into a tree above him and commence
a threatening cackle—both parents continue with the young ones
till these are nearly full grown. Such at least is my experience.
From Native Garhwal Mr. Wilson writes to me :—" The Kalij
is found from the foot of the hills, or rather from the Siwalik
Range to the Snows, and consequently breeds at all elevations
up to 9,000 feet; in a few localities still higher. I lately found
a nest above the village of Sukhi in the Bhagirathi Valley,
which must have been at 9,500 feet. In the Dhun, at the foot
of the hills and in the lower valleys, the Kalij begins to lay in
April. In the higher ranges it lays in May, and some birds not
till the beginning or middle of June. The nest, if it can be
called such, is generally in a coppice where there is plenty of
underwood, and under an overhanging stone, or thick low bush
or tuft of grass. It is merely a hole scraped in the ground.
The eggs are nine to fourteen in number, very like those of some
domestic fowls, a yellowish or buffy white. One I have before
me is 2 inches long and 1/5 wide ; some are rounder ; one from
another nest is 2 0 long and 1'62 wide. Both parent birds arc
generally found with the young brood. Occasionally very late
broods would lead one to infer, either that the Kalij sometimes
has two broods in the year, or that, when a nest is destroyed,
they recommence the business of incubation,"
Captain Hutton remarks : " This species, the Kalij of the hillmen,
is found in the hills at all seasons, and is common at every
elevation up to the snows. It breeds in May and June. In
the latter month I found a nest by the side of a small watercourse
composed merely of a few dead leaves and some dry
grasses, which had probably been accumulated by the wind and
tempted the bird to deposit her eggs upon them. The spot was
concealed by large overhanging ferns, and contained the shells
of eight eggs of a sullied or faint brownish-white, like some
hen's eggs ; the tops of all were neatly cut off as if by a knife,
snowing that the young ones had escaped, and, singular enough,
I had the day before captured the whole brood."
Captain Cock, writing from Dharmsala, says : " The Common
Kalij breeds in May and June, and lays its eggs, as a
rule, on the ground under a rock or bush ; but I have taken a
nest on a large low bough of a tree, in a hollow on the upper
side of which the eggs were placed. The hen will allow herself
to be caught on her nest at times. Lays eight eggs of a buff
colour."
The eggs are oval, moderately elongated, a good deal pointed
towards one end, perhaps typically less so than those of the
Grey Partridge, more so than those of the Peahen, but belonging
to that type, and not to that of the Francolin's or English