NOTES. 161 
would shortly have produced fertile eggs by running with the more 
matured hybrid cockerel in the garden, and he would have produced 
the unique cross of hybrid cock and jungle hen. 
When her own eggs were removed from the jungle hen’s nest, 
they were replaced by three eggs laid by the domestic hen running 
with the jungle cock, and these she incubated. Just at the time of 
hatching one egg got broken in the nest; it was an addled one. This 
attracted thousands of ants to the nest, which not only drove off the 
sitting hen, but killed and partly devoured the two chicks just 
hatched from the other two eggs. It would have been a strange 
sight to have had a jungle hen strutting about the garden with some 
hybrid chicks. 
Jungle hens have never bred in captivity. Mr. Johnson’s opinion 
is that this hen would never have bred with the hybrid cock or any 
other cock if it had been confined within wire netting walls. 
On the other hand, the late Mr. Young of Udabagie had two 
jungle hens in captivity for considerably more than one year, and 
they were mating up with a domestic cock, and Mr. Young was very 
hopeful of producing hybrids from this mating, when his tragic 
death by lightning put a stop to the experiment. 
It was just at this period that Mr. Johnson left Ceylon for England. 
Before he left this jungle hen was enticed into the run and caught, 
and with the jungle cock was sent to Mr. G. C. Bliss at Atagalla. 
The cock did not take kindly to the close confinement necessary 
while his big run was being put up in the new locality, and began to 
sicken; when turned into the big run he did not recover, so he was 
let out and given his liberty. At night time, however, he returned 
to this run (in which the jungle hen had been also placed) and was 
allowed to go in. Next morning he was founddead. Thus, after 
captivity of sixteen months, ended the life of a most interesting 
bird—the progenitor of all the thirty hybrids that were produced 
during the experiments. This jungle cock only mated with the one 
domestic hen, and would have nothing to do with any other hen, in 
fact he drove them all away. Even when his own particular hen 
had been removed for a month owing to illness, he still would have 
nothing to do with any other. After the death of this cock the 
jungle hen became excited and wild, so she was given her liberty, 
and flew away to be heard of no more. The history of this hen is 
surely unique. She had lived either in the experimental run or in 
the garden just outside it for eighteen months. 
J. LLEWELLYN THOMAS. 

12. Pelenda Nuwara.— A rampart of forest-clad mountains en- 
circle the great plath, which forms the adjacent villages of Morapitiya 
and Pelenda ; the earthworks which guarded the entrance can still 
y 6(2)11 
