How Birds Fight 



borne by any bird, belong to the red jungle- 

 cock {Callus gal '/us) of Eastern Asia, the ancestor 

 of our domestic poultry. This gallant little 

 fellow, although he strikes most people as being 

 a mere bantam, is the match of anything of his 

 weight in feathers. 



The kaleege pheasants [Gennaeus) are more 

 than a match for the pheasants of our coverts, 

 and these for any ordinary domestic fowl ; yet 

 a jungle-cock has been seen to defeat a cock 

 kaleege after an obstinate fight — a conflict com- 

 pelled by honour alone, as the white-ant hill, 

 about the possession of which it took place, 

 would have furnished a meal for both com- 

 batants. 



The spurs in some of the pheasant family are 

 doubled or even quadrupled, as shown in the 

 cock blood pheasant [Ithagenes cruentus) of the 

 Himalayan pine-forests, a wonderful bird with 

 long soft plumage coloured soft grey, apple- 

 green, and carmine. Such many-spurred birds 

 often have a different number of spurs on the 

 two legs, as is, indeed, the case with this 

 species. 



In allies of the spur-winged birds we often 

 find an incipient spur in the form of a knob, 

 as in the sheldrakes, some of the most pug- 

 nacious ducks ; and rudimentary knob-like spurs 

 on the leg are not uncommon in the pheasant 



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