THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA, 7 



ample cover and that it should be in broken hilly country. As 

 regards the kind of cover it frequents, this does not really seem 

 to matter much. It is sometimes found in tJiick evergreen forest, 

 but more often in thick scrub, in bamboo jungle and the dense 

 undergrowth of Sal and other deciduous forest. At other times it 

 may haunt well wooded nuUas and ravines of scattered patches of 

 Jungle in more or less open or cultivated ground. 



It is not a gregarious bird, and when found in small parties up 

 to some half dozen or so, these consist only of the two old birds 

 with their last brood, and before the breeding season commences 

 the latter disperse to take up their own domestic responsibilities. 



I have never heard of the Spur-Fowl being especially made 

 the object of a day's sport ; the few one gets are nearly always part 

 of a mixed bag made when one is shooting game driven by 

 a line of beaters. Under these circumstances one never seems 

 to get many, even where they are most common, for they 

 ai'e such confirmed runners and skulkers that they are most 

 difficult to flush, and prefer to race across from one patch of 

 Jungle to another rather than trust to their wings. They are 

 splendid runners, and dodge Irom one bush to another at such 

 a pace that it is really just as sporting to treat them like 

 rabbits on the ground rather than wait ibr the chance of their 

 flying when they offer a very easy shot. If forced to fly 

 they get up with a great fluster and flapping of wings, btit 

 their speed is by no means commensurate with the noise, 

 consisting of a few flaps and beats, then a sail of a few 

 yards, another few beats, and a headlong dive into cover. 

 When rising, they always utter a chuckling noise which reminds 

 one much of an old barnj'^ard hen which has been frightened, 

 but they cannot emit nearly such heart-rending cries as the latter 

 bird. The crow of the cocks in the breeding season is much 

 the same kind of call, and the conversational notes of a 

 separated family are merely subdued and modified versions of 

 the same. 



In the mornings and evenings they frequently come out into 

 the open to feed, especially where small patches of cultivation 

 intersect their forests and jungles. In the Hazaribagh and Ranchi 

 districts we often found them quite in the open feeding on the 

 fallen berries of the Ber bushes scattered about on the broken hill 

 sides and more than once we turned them out of millet and ripe 

 rice in the very early mornings in the cold weather. 



They feed on both an insect and vegetable diet, and as Hume 

 records " their food consists chiefly of grain and seeds of all kinds, 

 and small jungle fruit, the berries of the dwarf Zizphus ( Jher 

 bery), the figs of the Peepul and its congeners, but I have often 

 found the remains of bugs, beetles, and other insects in then- 



