358 Mr. R. Swinhoe un the Ornithology of Hainan. 



where I first saw the cock^ appeared the hen. Several natives 

 were with me. They shouted " Ho ho Twa kai^' (look, look ! 

 Hill-bird) ; and at the noise the hen rushed into the hedge, and 

 we tried to beat her out in vain. She seemed to be of a deep 

 brown colour, and in running kept her head low and her tail 

 partly erect. 



At Lingshuy (S.E. Hainan) we found grave-mounds on the 

 edge of the jungle strewn with cock^s feathers, as if the wild fowl 

 were in the habit of meeting on the mounds to fight. At Yu-lin- 

 kan (S. Hainan) I heard them repeatedly chuckling in the jungle 

 quite close to me ; but there was no getting a shot at them. In 

 the dense woods about Nychow (S. Hainan) they were par- 

 ticularly common, and we heard and saw them often. When 

 put up in the open, they make at once for the covert, flying 

 heavily, with the body and tail nearly perpendicular. I saw a 

 Le man put a cock bird up ; and marking it drop into the wood, 

 I hastened to the spot. It gave a crow " tok-tok tok tok chea " — 

 as a domestic hen does when frightened. My follower raised 

 it from the thick bush with a stone ; it flew a short distance, 

 and fell again into the thicket. Our party returned to the 

 boat without a Jungle-fowl ; and we saw no more of them in 

 the course of our cruise. 



The single male specimen that I have brought home is suffi- 

 cient to show, from its black uuderparts and its general colour- 

 ing, that the Hainan bird belongs to the ordinary species. The 

 small hackles of its neck, however, are richer chestnut than in my 

 Indian examples, and the feathers of its rump a much brighter 

 red. But these vary in the diff'erent races of this bird, and my 

 specimen is too undeveloped for close comparison. 



I may mention that I noticed that the poultry of the villages 

 on the outskirts of the jungle were very like the wild fowl, 

 though I could not learn from the natives that they actually 

 crossed. I considered this an important fact when I first ob- 

 served it, as I was then under the impression that the Hainan 

 Jungle-cock was a peculiar species. But in the case of G. fer- 

 rugineus this has already been noted by Mr. Blyth. 



Du Halde ('Description de la Chine,' i. p. 230), mentioning 



