Bonelli's Eagle, a great enemy of this species, must have caught
and devoured one. Whilst I was looking: round, one of my
dogs brought me from somewhere in the jungle round a freshlykilled
Jungle-Cock, in splendid plumage, but with the base of the
skull on one side pierced by what I at once concluded must
have been the spur of another cock. I put up for the day at a
Bunjara Perow, some two miles distant, and on speaking to the
men found that they knew the place well, and one of them said
that he had repeatedly watched the cocks fighting there, and
that he would take me to a tree close by whence I could see it
for myself. Long before daylight he guided me to the tree,
telling me to climb to the 4th fork, whence, quite concealed, I
could look down on the mound. When I got up it was too dark
to sec anything, but a glimmer of dawn soon stole into the
eastern sky, which I faced ; soon after crowing began all round,
then I made out the mound dimly, perhaps 30 yards from
the base of the tree and 40 from my perch ; then it got
quite light and in a few minutes later, a Jungle-Cock ran out
on to the top of the mound and crowed (for a wild bird)
vociferously, clapping his wings, and strutting round and round,
with his tail raised almost like a domestic fowl.
And here I should notice that although, as has often been
noticed, the wild cocks always droop their tails when running
away or feeding—in fact almost whenever you see them—yet I
believe from what I then and once subsequently saw, that, when
challenging rivals, they probably always erect the tail, and
I know (having twice so surprised them before they saw me
when watching for Chectul and Sambhur from a •macJldn, near
water in the early morning) that when paying their addresses
to their mates, they do the same during the preliminary struts
round them.
I learnt so much and no more ; there was a rush, a yelp ; the
Jungle-Cock had vanished, and I found that one of my wretched
dogs had got loose, tracked me, and was now careering wildly
about the foot of the tree.
Next day I tried again, but without success. I suppose the
birds about had been too much scared by the dog, and I had to
leave the place without seeing a fight there ; but putting all the
facts together, I have not the smallest doubt that this was a real
fighting arena, and that, as the Bunjara averred, many of the
innumerable cocks in the neighbourhood did systematically
fight there.
Only a week later I shot two cocks, who were tumbling head
over heels, a confused mass, with wings and legs interlaced in an
incredible manner, and on several other occasions, when watching
and waiting, concealed and in silence, for larger game, I
have witnessed desperate battles between cocks who happened
to meet, attracted by each other's crows and flappings of wings,
near my tree ambush.
T H E R E D JUNGLE FOWL breeds alike in hills and plains, from
almost sea level up to three, four, or even five thousand feet
elevation according to locality,
According to my personal experience in the Himalayas
and sub-Himalayan tracts, its eggs are normally only to be
found between the 1st April and the end of June, and the
higher the nest the later they lay, but others talk of finding
the nests in January, February, or March, and I therefore
suppose that they lay earlier further south.
The hen makes her nest in any dense thicket, bamboo clumps,
it is said by preference, though I have not noticed this to be
the case, composed of dry leaves, grass, and stems of soft herbaceous
plants. Sometimes the nest is large and comfortable ;
sometimes it looks as if the bird had made no nest and merely
laid on a heap of dry leaves that it found handy, hollowing a
receptacle for the eggs by the pressure of its body. Sometimes,
again, the bird has clearly scraped a hollow in which to place
the nest, and sometimes it has scraped up the earth all round, so
as to make a sort of rim to the nest and keep the materials firm.
Many years ago, shooting in May for a month in the
Siwaliks, chiefly along the southern side, my people and dogs
between them used to find me a nest almost every day, and
once we found six within a circle of 200 yards near the Bhinjka
khol. A large lota of water was carried, and one or two
eggs out of every batch were tested to see if they would lie
flat at the bottom, stand on end, or float; of course we took
only the former, and these I used to eat boiled, roast, and in
omelettes, until I got perfectly sick of them. In those days,
(I say it with pain and humiliation) the only use I ever put
eggs to was to eat them, and in this particular case I was
punished, for since I took to collecting eggs fate has so willed
it that I have never seen a single nest, and have only quite
recently succeeded in obtaining a good scries from different
localities. Well, in all the many nests I have seen, I never
found more than nine eggs, and as well as I can remember five
or six were the usual complement, even where the eggs were
hard-set and floated. Other people speak of finding many more
eggs in a nest. Wardlaw Ramsay, for instance, took a nest in
Karenee on the 14th March containing eleven eggs!
Captain Hutton says :—"The Common Jungle-Fowl is abundant
in some parts of the Dun, and in summer ascends the outer
hills to 5,000 feet elevation. It lays its eggs on the ground
with little preparation of nest, contenting itself with scraping
together a few dry leaves and grass ; the eggs being from
four to six generally, though often more, of a dull white, and
very similar to those of Common Bantam Fowls, with which it
will readily breed if domesticated from the egg.
" I have often reared the chicks under a domestic hen and
turned them loose, but after staying about the house for several