92 



THE AMERICAN POULTERER'S COMPANION. 



ATJSTBALIAN JUNGLE FOWL. 



never to go far inland, except along the banks 

 of creeks. It is always met with in pairs or 

 quite solitary, and feeds on the ground, its food 

 consisting of roots, which its powerful claws 

 enable it to scratch up with the utmost facility, 

 and also of seeds, berries, and insects, particu- 

 larly the larger species of Coleoptera. It is at 

 all times a very difficult bird to procure ; for al- 

 though the rustling noise produced by its stiff 

 pinions when flying away be frequently heard, 

 the bird itself is seldom to be seen. Its flight 

 is heavy and unsustained in the extreme ; when 

 first disturbed it invariably flies to a tree, and 

 on alighting stretches out its head and neck in a 

 straight line with its body, remaining in this posi- 

 tion as stationary and motionless as the branch 

 on which it is perched ; if, however, it becomes 

 fairly alarmed, it takes a horizontal but labori- 

 ous flight for about a hundred yards, with its 

 legs hanging down as if broken. I did not my- 

 self detect any note or cry, but from the natives' 

 description and imitation of it, it much resem- 

 bles the clucking of the domestic fowl, ending 

 with a scream like that of the peacock. 



" The head and crest of the bird is of a very 

 deep cinnamon-brown ; back of the neck and 

 all the under surface very dark gray ; back and 

 wings cinnamon-brown; upper and under tail 



coverts dark chestnut -brown ; tail blackish- 

 brown ; bill reddish-brown, with yellow edges : 

 tarsi and feet bright orange. It appears that on 

 Mr. Gilbert's arrival at Port Essington his at- 

 tention was attracted to numerous great mounds 

 of earth which were pointed out to him by some 

 of the residents, as being the tumuli of the 

 aborigines. The natives on the other hand as- 

 sured him that they were formed by the Jungle 

 fowl for the purpose of hatching its eggs ; and 

 so it afterward proved. One of these mounds 

 is described as fifteen feet high, and sixty in 

 circumference at the base, and so enveloped in 

 thickly foliaged trees as to preclude the possi- 

 bility of the sun's rays reaching any part of it.'" 



The list of wild fowls has now been gone 

 through ; a short reference, therefore, to these 

 races that have been commonly regarded as the 

 progenitors of our poultry-yard, will complete" 

 this portion of our labor. 



First, in point of size, no less than the re- 

 mote period at which we find reference to this 

 bird, comes the Gallus Giganteus of Temminck. 

 the Kulm cock or Jago fowl of other natu- 

 ralists. The character of this inhabitant of the 

 Eastern Archipelago and parts of the adjacent 

 continent would seem to be far more suited to 

 a state of domestication than we have reason to 



