2 22 THE RED JUNCLE-FOWL,
jungle. To a stranger it is not a little curious to hear the
familiar sounds of our farmyards issuing from the depths of
the wild forest.
" This bird must be sought in all jungly country which is
partly cultivated ; and where paddy fields extend in long
strips into the forest, two sportsmen walking one on each side
just within the cover, with a line of beaters between them, can
enjoy very pretty shooting. The fowls rise from the stubble
and fly into the wood, passing over head, and the sport resembles
Pheasant-shooting in England, the flight and size of the
birds being pretty similar. When the fields have been cleared
of the fowls, the shooting may be continued with success in the
woods if they be pretty open and the sportsman furnished
with spaniels the sight of which forces the birds to tree, from
whence very pretty snap shots may be obtained, as they will
often rest on a high branch till the sportsman has arrived underneath
before taking wing again. Both cocks and hens make
a desperate cackling and flutter when thus roused up by dogs,
and I know of no shooting which requires greater nerve and
steadiness. If there are no dogs the birds will not tree, but run
slyly and silently along and are seen no more, unless you be
mounted on an elephant, when it is easy enough to pot them,
should you be so minded, as they skulk under the brushwood.
Like the Fhasianidae, wild poultry are omnivorous. They are
not subject to migrations, even to the extent to which Pea-Fowl
shift their quarters ; but in the hot season and the rains they
retire deeper into the woods, the cultivated tracts no longer
affording food, while the sylvan recesses provide seclusion and
shelter for breeding."
To a certain extent the Jungle-Fowl is omnivorous, and will
eat not only grass and young shoots and flower buds, and seeds
and grain of all kinds, but worms and grasshoppers and beetles
and small land shells, but they are preferentially graminivorous,
and I have examined scores which had eaten
absolutely nothing but grain.
In the autumn, after the millet fields have ripened, they
grow very fat on this grain, and the birds of the year are then
really good eating, but, as a rule, the birds one shoots (be it
confessed with shame, for it ought to be a close season) from
March to June, tiger-shooting in the Tarai, when, the day's
sport over, one turns homeward towards the tents, are no whit
better than ordinary village fowls.
Captain Baldwin, the well-known author of the " Game of
Bengal," tells us that—
" T h e Jungle-Fowl is generally found in very thick jungle
bordering rivers like the Sarda in Pilibhit, specially when the
banks of streams are much cut up and intersected by ravines
with thick patches of overhanging bushes ; wooded islands in
rivers, near the foot of the hills, are also likely spots.
THE RED JUNGLE-FOWL, 223
" In the early morning, or towards evening, the birds come
out from the dense thicket, where they retire during the heat of
the day to feed near the edge of the forest. They like to scratch
about at the back of old cattle-sheds, and where crops grow
close to the jungle side will enter the corn fields to feed. In
some places, where the borders of the forest are much broken
and irregular, and the villagers have cultivation here and there
between patches of wood and bushes, I have seen capital
bags made by a couple of guns, three or four beaters, and a
few bustling spaniels. The plan is this : to beat out strips and
patches separately, and make a corner here and there, placing
the guns in the first instance between the patch of standing
crop about to be beaten, and the forest towards which the
Jungle-Fowl when flushed are certain to make The birds
finding their retreat cut off, and pushed hard by men and
dogs, are forced to take flight, and when well on the wing offer
as fine a shot as a sportsman could desire."
Col. Williamson, Inspector-General of Police in Assam,
remarks :—
" T h e Red Jungle-Fowl is found in the Garo Hills, and in all
the Assam plains districts. I shot the bird beyond Sadiya the
other day. It is a permanent resident in Assam ; it is found
in bamboo and tree jungle, and is very often numerous near
villages. In the low hills near Siisung in the Mymcnsing
District of Bengal, I have had excellent sport with these
birds. I had the hills thoroughly beaten by beaters, the guns
being carefully posted across the line of flight of the birds. I
have shot 10 to 12 couple in an hour's shooting in this way.
The best time for this sport is just at the season when the
cokl weather rice crop is ready for the sickle; say, during the
month of December and early in January."
From Khoolna, Mr. Rainey writes :—
" I have found this species here and there in small numbers,
in that tract of swampy forest country lying between the
estuaries of the Hooghly and Megna, and known as the
Sundarbans.
" I have never found them in the dense grass or reed jungle.
They appear to stick to the forest, where they roost on the
branches, selecting the most horizontal ones they can find.
"The cackling of the female, though it is slightly sharper,
much resembles that of the common domestic hen of Lower
Bengal ; and she appears to be always similarly noisy after
depositing her egg. The male gives forth his cock-a-doodlc-do
quite as lustily, but in somewhat shriller tones than his
representative of the village poultry-yards, and where human
habitations at which fowls are reared exist adjoining the
forest, it is most difficult to distinguish between the crows of
tame and wild Chanticleers as they ' proclaim the coming
morn.'