" Their principal food in the Sundarbans is insects, especially,
I should say, the larva of termites or white ants, which abound
there. Grass seeds also doubtless afford them some subsistence.
The majority rarely have an opportunity of feeding on grain—
only such few of them as chance to dwell near one of the
rare and isolated patches of cultivation
' Ran nantes in gurgite vaslo'
ever see grain in these virgin wildernesses. It must, however,
be admitted that those which do thus get a chance of partaking
the luxuries of civilization evince the greatest partiality for
them, and regularly every morning and evening make a raid on
the rice fields near harvest time.
" The best way of shooting these birds here is by proceeding
morning and evening along the edge of the forest between it
and the rice fields. The sportsman will thus flush two or three
coveys of them, and secure a few brace. The largest bag that
could be obtained by a single gun would hardly be more than
three or four brace.
" Very few cultivators—there are no professional bird-catchers
in the Sundarbans—attempt to snare the Jungle-Fowl, and they
do so only occasionally. They catch them in nooses, using a
tame decoy bird to allure the wild ones. The decoy bird is
tethered in an open space close to the forest, with the nooses
placed round it and grain strewn about. The call of the
decoy bird—and it is always in a defiant tone—attracts the wild
fowl, and generally the males come forth to do battle and are
snared, or the hens to eat the grain, and arc similarly secured.
I have never seen birds thus captured when mature, tamed or
even kept alive in confinement for any time, as they obstinately
refuse to cat, and pine away and die.
" I may add that the Jungle-Fowls in the Sundarbans appear
to be descended immediately from domestic fowls, which used
to be let out there in considerable numbers by superstitious
wood-cutters to propitiate the sylvan deities—a practice still
prevailing to some extent—and I have shot these birds there
in different stages of transition. This is interesting, as we
evidently thus find the domestic fowl reverting to its pristine
condition, for the Red Jungle-Fowl is undoubtedly the origin of
our tame varieties of fowl. I had a couple of chicks, produced
from eggs of wild birds set under the domestic fowl, and they
remained contentedly in the poultry-yard, and freely bred—they
were both hens—with the tame fowl. The progeny were in
appearance midway between their parents, and exactly similar
to some I had shot in the Sundarbans. About that time the
cyclone of 1867 swept over the place I was residing at, and
of course put a premature end to the varied denizens of the
poultry-yard, hybrids included. I soon afterwards left my
abode in the wilds of the Sundarbans, and have had no
opportunity since of continuing the experiment,"
I am not going to discuss the problem, on which so much has
been written, as to whether all our domestic poultry really spring
exclusively from the Red Jungle-Fowl or whether other wild
stocks have contributed a strain. The discussion is perfectly
profitless, because the problem is perfectly insoluble, since every
trait or detail of plumage or of colour or shape of soft parts which
may be adduced as proving the intermixture of other wild species
(and there are many breeds in which such appear) may be equally
explained on the assumption that they are instances of attavism,
and are derived through the Red Jungle-Fowl from the common
stock out of which all existing species of Jungle-Fowl diverged.
But looking to the geographical position of the Sundarbans,
at the apex of the Delta, and its very recent origin, I should
not be surprised if Mr. Rainey were right, and all the Jungle-
Fowl there found were really, as a great number undoubtedly
are, the progeny of tame races ; in which case these Sundarbans
birds furnish another illustration of the readiness with
which the tame fowls revert, under favourable conditions, to the
wild ancestral type.
From Tcnasscrim, where alone, within our limits, he has seen
much of them, Davison records that "this species was extremely
abundant in the bamboo forests about Pahpoon, and to the
north of that place, and I have found it not uncommon over
the rest of the province, except in the higher hills. It frequents
all kinds of localities, dense forest, thin tree, bamboo and
scrub jungle. It comes out in the morning and evening into
the fields and clearings, retiring during the day to cover. They
are always found in larger or smaller flocks, consisting of males
and females ; when disturbed they usually rise at once and
disperse in different directions ; when the female is sitting or
has young ones, she keeps apart from the flocks, and generally
keeps to cover, seldom coming into the open until the chicks
are well grown and pretty strong on the wing.
" On one occasion, near Pahpoon, I counted thirty males and
females seated side by side on one enormous bent bamboo.
Mr. Hildebrande was with me, or I should not have ventured
to record the fact. I counted them carefully through my
binoculars. They were at the other side of the Younzalcen,
I guessed about 70 yards off; I loaded a large duck gun with
big shot, fired at the lot and—apparently did not touch one."
No one specially notices the extreme pugnacity of these
birds in the wild state, or the fact that where they are numerous
they select regular fighting grounds much like Ruffs.
Going through the forests of the Siwaliks in the northeastern
portion of the Saharanpur district, I chanced one afternoon,
late in March, on a tiny open grassy knoll, perhaps ten yards
in diameter and a yard in height. It was covered with close
turf, scratched in many places into holes, and covered over with
Jungle-Fowl feathers to such an extent that I thought some