PAINTED SPUR-FOWL 181 



feet, which are dull blackish, and the very faint indication 

 of red round the eye, make the dull, plain, brown hen a very 

 ordinary looking creature ; her only noticeable point of colour is 

 the chestnut face. 



The ground-colour of the cock's plumage is chestnut above 

 for the most part, but the crown and shoulders are glossy green- 

 black ; on the buff breast the spots are black instead of white, 

 and the head and neck are all black and white. 



The Askal is generally seen when rocky hills are being beaten 

 for big game, such places being its usual resorts, but they must 

 have plenty of vegetable cover as well as stones. Even when 

 thus forced out, the birds will only fly once, going to ground 

 among the boulders when they have had one flight ; on the wing 

 they look much like jungle-fowls and, unlike the last species, do 

 not drop readily to a shot ; they resemble it, however, in their 

 speed of foot. 



This also is a very local bird, and although its area of habitat 

 is much the same as that of the red spur- fowl, it is not found 

 in the north-west, while it extends east to Bengal, and is wanting 

 on the coast of Malabar. Moreover, in localities where the red 

 spur-fowl is found this species is generally wanting, and vice 

 versa, so that on the whole their distribution does not coincide 

 nearly so much as might be imagined from the consideration of 

 their range as a whole. The choice of station, too, is somewhat 

 different in the two species, since, though both love hills and 

 thick cover, the present one is more distinctively and exclusively 

 a rock-haunter. The call is said to be a peculiar loud chur, chur, 

 chur, anything but fowl-like, but Jerdon, in speaking of the 

 " fine cackhng sort of call, very fowl-Hke," attributes this to the 

 males, so that no doubt the challenge and alarm-notes are, as 

 one would expect, quite different. Not only is the bird very shy 

 and hard to get, but it is not so succulent and gamey in character 

 of flesh as the red spur-fowl. The cocks have been found in 

 confinement to be very pugnacious, and their black legs are as 

 well provided with spurs as are the red ones of the other species ; 

 hens also are usually armed in the same way, with a pair of 

 spurs or a single one. 



The five eggs, which may be found as early as March or as 



