days, they always eventually betook themselves to the jungles
and disappeared. If kept confined with other fowls, however,
they readily interbreed, and the broods will then remain quiet
under domestication, and always exhibit, both in plumage and
manner, much more of the wild than of the tame stock,
preferring at night to roost on the branches of trees. Mr. Blyth
has remarked that his cross-breed eggs never produced chicks,
but I have never found any difficulty in this respect. The
crowing of the cock birds is very shrill and like that of the
Frizzled Bantams. In the wild state it is monogamous."
Dr. Jcrdon states that " t h e hen breeds from January to July,
according to the locality, laying eight to twelve eggs, of a
creamy white colour, often under a bamboo clump or in some
dense thicket, occasionally scraping a few leaves or a little
dried grass together to form a nest."
In the FIELD, " Ornithognomon" writes : " T h e period of incubation
varies, according to locality, but is generally at the
beginning of the rains, i. e., June. I have seen eggs, however,
in March. The hen selects for the purpose of nidification some
secret thicket in the most retired and dense part of the jungle,
scraping together a few leaves on the ground by way of nest.
She remains as part of the cock's seraglio until some seven to
ten or a dozen eggs have been deposited in the above spot, to
which she stealthily repairs every day, and finally quits her
party and retires alone and unseen to perform the duties of incubation.
The chicks are hatched as usual in about twenty
days, and run about, following the mother, as soon as they have
emerged from the egg-shell ; and she leads them about, teaching
them how to find their own sustenance, till they are big
enough to shift for themselves, by which time the young cocks,
finding that they cannot in honour come within a few yards of
each other without a battle, separate, each one taking some
of his sisters with him. These particulars I have gathered
from native informants ; but I can add from my own experience
that cither the season of incubation is uncertain, or that the
hens lay in the cold season with no more ulterior views than
the domestic birds, for both in February and March I have heard
them emit that peculiar cackle tnk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tukauk I by which
every one knows a hen in a farmyard proclaims to the good
housewife a fresh acquisition to her larder."
A good deal of this is purely "native." In the first place,
the nests are not really generally so very carefully hidden ; they
are in thickets no doubt, but fully half of them are so far open
that no one given to bird-nesting could possibly pass them. In
the second, go near the nest when you like,—morning, noon, or
evening.—be there one egg or six in the nest, your dogs are
certain to put the hen up quite close. In the third place, how
each young cock is to go away taking some of his sisters with
him I do not know. Certainly, to judge from the young birds
one kills in October and November (when they are fat as butter
and most delicious), fully as many young cocks as hens are
reared. Lastly, I am quite certain that they are not always
polygamous. I do not agree with Hutton that they are always
monogamous, because I have constantly found several hens in
company with a single cock, but I have also repeatedly shot
pairs without finding a single other hen in the neighbourhood,
and if you have good dogs (and you can do nothing in jungle
with either these or Pheasants without dogs) you are sure to
see and hear, even if you get no shot at them, all the birds there
are.
" In the Sundarbans," says Mr. Rainey, " their breeding
season lasts generally from March to May. The hen lays her
eggs on the ground, usually in a shallow hole scraped for that
purpose and lined with a few scattered leaves. The nest is
made in the centre of some dense thicket or underwood in the
midst or edge of the forest. She lays from six to eight eggs ;
at least I have never found more than that number in any
single nest. The eggs are rather smaller than those of tame
fowls in the same parts of the country, and of a slightly reddish
brown colour. Many eggs arc destroyed, I am told, by the socalled
' Iguana,' properly Monitor Lizard ( Varanus draceena.)"
From Upper Pegu, where they are quite as common in the
hills as in the plains, Mr. Oates sent me eggs taken by him
on the 20th March and 25th May.
He says : " In Pegu this species appears to breed throughout
the first six months of the year, but more frequently in April,
May, and June. Nests at all elevations from 100 to 2,000 feet
above sea level."
The eggs vary much in size and shape, but typically they are
miniature hens' eggs ; considerably elongated varieties are,
however, common. The shell is, as a rule, very fine and smooth,
and has a tolerable gloss ; but specimens occur in which the
pores are much more marked than usual, the shell coarser and
rougher, and the gloss very faint. As to colour they are normally
a pale yellowish cajc'au lait colour, but occasionally a redder
and deeper-coloured egg is met with.
In length the eggs vary from r6 to 2'03, and in breadth from
I'27 to i'5 ; but the average of thirty is 178 by 1-36.
AS TO DIMENSIONS—
Males, measured.—Length, 25'0 to 28-2; expanse, 27-0 to 29-5 ;
wing 8 T 2 to 9-5 ; tail from vent, 11-25 to 14-3 ; tarsus, 3-0 to
3-12 • bill from gape, I T 9 to 1-37 ; spur, very sharp and curved,
r o to 1 7 in length. Weight, 1 lb. 12 ozs. to 2 lbs. 4 ozs. _
Females.—Length, i&5to 18-25 ; expanse, 230 to 250 ; wing,
7-1 to 7-5 ; tail from vent, 5'5 to 65 ; tarsus, 2-3 to 2-55 ; bill
from oape, 09 to 102. Weight, 1 lb. 2 ozs to 1 lb. 10 ozs.