THE JUNGLE-FOWL. 5I 



man to creep within shot or sight of the bird. The hen, too, 

 announces the important fact of having laid an egg with the 

 same vociferation as in the domestic state, but is silent ere the 

 stealthiest footstep can approach her hiding-place, and, gliding 

 with stealthy feet under the dense foliage, is soon far away in 

 the deep recesses of the jungle. To a stranger it is not a little 

 curious to hear the familiar sounds of our farmyards issuing 

 from the depths of the wild forest. . . ." 



Mr. A. O. Hume remarks : — " To a certain extent the 

 Jungle-Fowl is omnivorous, and will eat not only grass and 

 young shoots and flower-buds and seeds and grain of all kinds, 

 but worms and grasshoppers and beetles and small land shells, 

 but they are preferentially graminivorous, and I have examined 

 scores which had eaten absolutely nothing but grain. 



" In the autumn, after the millet-fields have ripened, they 

 grow very fat on this grain, and the birds of the year are then 

 really good eating, but as a rule the birds one kills (be it 

 confessed with shame, for it ought to be a close season), from 

 March to June, when tiger-shooting in the tarai, when, the day's 

 sport over, one turns homeward towards the tents, are no w^hit 

 better than ordinary village fowls. . . . 



*' No one specially notices the extreme pugnacity of these 

 birds in the wild state, or the fact that, where they are numerous, 

 they select regular fighting-grounds, much like the Ruffs. 



" Going through the forest of the Siwaliks in the north- 

 eastern portion of the Saharanpur district, I chanced one after- 

 noon, late in March, on a tiny open grassy knoll, perhaps ten 

 yards in diameter and a yard in height. It w^as covered with 

 close turf, scratched in many places into holes, and covered over 

 with Jungle-Fowl feathers to such an extent that I thought 

 some Bonelli's Eagle, a great enemy of this species, must have 

 caught and devoured one. Whilst I was looking round, one of 

 my dogs brought me from somewhere in the jungle round a 

 freshly-killed Jungle-Cock, in splendid plumage, but with the 

 base of the skull on one side pierced by what I at once con- 



