BEST MONTHS AND LOCALITIES FOR GAME. 39 



their swift and irregular flight, protect snipe from certain exter- 

 mination in common with all other game birds, beautiful in 

 themselves and valuable and wholesome food for man. Suffice 

 it to state briefly, that good quail-shooting may be had between 

 November and June in some parts of northern and western 

 Behar, and more or less in Bengal and Orissa a little later in 

 the season, according to the crops grown and other conditions 

 of the different localities. There used to be excellent jungle- 

 fowl and pheasant-shooting in Chittagong, and some is still 

 to be had immediately after the rice crops have been harvested, 

 in December and January. 



I think there are two varieties of the jungle-fowl, the 

 black and the red ; but I cannot state with any satisfaction 

 to myself where these occur, and where they do not. Jerdon 

 describes two only, the red and the grey. Possibly his grey 

 jungle-fowl is the same as that I have designated black, as more 

 correctly indicating the general colouring of the cock bird, 

 while the hen is undoubtedly a brownish grey, more brown I 

 think than grey. Unless I greatly err, both varieties are to 

 be found in Chota Nagpoor, and along the Grand Trunk 

 Eoad, west of Govindpoor ; "muthoara" and the polyplectron 

 in the eastern and north-eastern jungles, and the "kaly" 

 pheasant is found in the northern Himalayan woods. The 

 game bag in these localities may be varied by the addition 

 of a few snipe, and even an occasional woodcock. 



There is still some fair jungle-fowl-shooting to be got on 

 the Grand Trunk Road between Topechansi and Doomri in 

 the months of December and January; and the sportsman 

 may at the same time kill a few partridges, two or three 

 spur-fowl, as many pea-fowl, a hare, and, possibly, a barking- 

 deer ; but I do not consider the sport good enough to attract 

 one from any great distance. In Hazaribagh, too, the same 

 kind of shooting can be obtained, and a mixed bag made 

 up by the end of the day. 



The rock-pigeon may also fall to the gun between Nimia- 

 ghat and the river Sone, but in no numbers, and only the 

 smaller variety, more of them frequenting the high, bare 



