52 LLOYD S NATURAL HISTOTIV. 



eluded must have been the spur of another cock. 1 put up for 

 the day at a Bunjara Perow, some two miles distant, and, on 

 speaking to the men, found that they knew the place well, and 

 one of them said that he had repeatedly watched the cocks fight- 

 ing there, and that he would take me to a tree close by whence I 

 could see it for myself. Long before daylight he guided me to 

 the tree, telling me to climb to the fourth fork, whence, quite 

 concealed, I could look down on the mound. When I got up, 

 it was too dark to see anything, but a glimmer of dawn soon 

 stole into the eastern sky, which I faced ; soon after, crowing 

 began all round ; then I made out the mound dimly, perhaps 

 thirty yards from the base of the tree and forty from my perch ; 

 then it got quite light, and in a few minutes later a Jungle- 

 Cock ran out on to the top of the mound and crowed (for a 

 wild bird) vociferously, clapping his wings and strutting round 

 and round, with his tail raised almost like that of a domestic 

 fowl. . . I learnt so much and no more ; there was a rush, 

 a yelp, the Jungle-Cock had vanished, and I found that one of 

 my wretched dogs had got loose, tracked me, and was now 

 careering wildly about the foot of the tree. 



" Next day I tried again, but without success. I suppose the 

 birds about had been too much scared by the dog, and I had 

 to leave the place without seeing a fight there ; but, putting all 

 the facts together, I had not the smallest doubt that this was 

 the real fighting arena, and that as the Bunjara averred, many 

 of the innumerable cocks in the neighbourhood did systematic- 

 ally do combat there." 



Captain Hutton says : — '* I have often reared the chicks 

 under a domestic hen, and turned them loose ; but, after stay- 

 ing about the house for several days, they always eventually 

 betook themselves to the jungles and disappeared. If kept 

 confined with other fowls, however, they readily interbreed, 

 and the broods will then remain quiet under domestication, 

 and always exhibit, both in plumage and manner, much more of 

 the wild than of the tame stock, preferring at night to roost on 



