288 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HIST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



No. XIII.— THE BREEDING HABITS OF MRS. HUME'S 



PHEASANT, 



I have been reading through Vol. XXV, No. 3, and I am sending you as 

 few particulars which you may find interesting. 



While I was in the Chin Hills, I shot quite a number of Mrs. Hume's 

 Pheasant and I skinned two very fine cock birds which I intended sending 

 you, but as you know, I was very suddenly ordered on service, and the 

 skins are still at my bungalow at Dehra Dun. 



1. The Durwan of the Dak Bungalow at Tiddim found a nest and a 

 clutch of 6 eggs of Mrs. Hume's and Mr. Wickham (of the P. W. D., Burma) 

 was then staying at Tiddim. He took half the clutch and gave me the other 

 three eggs. The eggs were found at the foot of a tree of a dwarf oak cover- 

 ed spur and the nest was hidden in a small bush (about 1' high) of under- 

 growth. The nest was a simple excavation of the ground lined with oak 

 leaves. We did not see the birds but the Durwan did. I think the clutch 

 was taken on the 25th March 1916, but I have not my diary with me, 

 though Mr. Wickham would know. The nest was situated on well drained 

 ground on the top of a spur. 



I had a sitting hen and placed the three eggs under her. As far as I 

 remember, they took 26 days to hatch, but I only got one chick as the hen 

 crushed the others. The young bird was as wild as anything imaginable. 

 When I went into the hen house to see if any eggs had hatched, this chick 

 jumped out of the nest, on to the ground and ran at a great pace and hid 

 behind a stone as it could not escape. I then placed . a very thin meshed 

 basket over the hen and her chick on my lawn as the chick did all it could 

 to escape into the jungle and its foster mother could do nothing with 

 it. There was no doubt from its markings on the wings and body that 

 it was a Mrs. Hume chick. It would only drink dew on the grass 

 in the early mornings. Whenever it saw a human being it used to 

 run and hide under a tuft of grass or underneath its foster mother 

 and I had the greatest difiiculty with it when 1 let it out. On one 

 occasion, it bolted 100 yards towards the jungle at a terrific pace 

 and it took all my servants over an hour to find it. Its pace was pheno- 

 menal and it could hide very easily under the smallest tuft of grass. The 

 foster mother could not understand her fractious offspring and got very 

 fed up with it as it would not stay with her. On the 17th day after 

 hatching, I was putting the little beast back into its cage where the mother 

 was,, after it had escaped through the meshes and had been found 200 

 yards from my bungalow when I had given the little beast up as lost. The 

 mother pecked her offspring on the head and killed it. I was very sorry, 

 as I had high hopes of rearing it after keeping it so long. I used to feed it 

 on boiled rice and little pieces of cooked meat which the Chins said I must 

 give it. Mr. Wickham was able to blow his eggs successfully as they were 

 quite fresh. There was a fine flock of about 12 birds always living in the 

 open forest and stunted jungle about 500 yards east of the Gurkha Basti 

 1:^ miles from Tiddim and below the Tiddim-Fort White Road. 1 had 

 several good mornings here with my dogs, as each year there were 4 wood- 

 cock living close by and also a good many bamboo partridge. But the only 

 place, at which I found Mrs. Hume at all numerous was on the grassy 

 slopes of the hill 2 miles N; and opposite to the Dak Bungalow at Fort 

 White. I used to go hereafter Barking Deer and Gural and shot quite a 

 number of Mrs. Hume and flushed fairly large numbers at times. I used 

 to see them running away through the grass and they are at once recognis- 

 ed by the clucking sound they make as they run away, which is their 

 alarm crv. 



