Blushing Birds 



what unkindly eye on these revealings of the 

 turkey's soul, for the wild bird, which lives under 

 her strict discipline, has a much smaller and less 

 richly-beaded dewlap than the tame one. 



So far as I am aware, the power of changing 

 complexion has always been supposed to be con- 

 fined to the turkey among birds of the game and 

 poultry kind, but I have recently found it to be 

 shared by another bird, no distant relative of the 

 common barndoor fowl. Our gallant roosters, 

 which are always proverbially ruddy, are descended 

 from the Indian and Burmese red jungle-cock, 

 a game little bird resembling a "black-breasted 

 red " bantam, except in its larger size and less 

 bumptious carriage — a wild bird which may have 

 to bolt for his life at any moment cannot afford 

 to swagger much. Now there are several other 

 species of jungle-fowl in the East, and one of 

 these, the green jungle-cock of Java and some other 

 islands, almost rivals the turkey in his changeable 

 countenance. His pretty comb, which, with its 

 delicate shading of puce and sea-blue, looks like 

 the petal of an orchid, is always the same, but his 

 wattle — for he has only one — will expand like the 

 turkey's, and when at full stretch shows a yellow 

 patch where it joins the throat, as well as the 

 sunset tints which it shares with the comb ; and 

 at the same time the face, which is often only 



flesh-coloured, blushes as red as any tame chanti- 



219 



