235



Notes on Breeding the Jungle Bush-Quail.



proceeded to sit jointly on them. Every two or three hours-

during the day, one or the other of them would leave the nest

for ten minutes or so, to feed and roll in the dust. The cock

birds, I noticed, never approached the nest during the incubation

period, but on the eighteenth day I found the whole flock of

twelve Bush-Quails huddled together on and around the nest,

and about two hours later they left the spot followed by nine

young birds.


Thenceforward, the whole of the adult birds appeared to

constitute themselves the common parents of the new arrivals,

the cock-birds however taking the larger share in looking after

and feeding the latter and brooding them. For the first week

the chicks fed mainly on gentles. After that, they took to grain,

though they were also quite partial to small grasshoppers..

Within three weeks they were fully fledged, though it was not

until some six weeks later that the distinctive markings of the

male birds made their appearance. From first to last I had no

trouble in the bringing up of the young birds. Soft food of some

kind for the first few days of their existence is apparently a sine

qua 7 io?i , and, according to my experience, both with the first and

the subsequent broods which I have succeeded in rearing, gentles

admirably answer the purpose.


The cock Bush-Quail at all ordinary times is an exceedingly

pugnacious bird,* but, as soon as young birds make their appear¬

ance, the adult cocks temporarily sink their differences with each

other in order to join in the quaint patriarchal system of family-

rearing which I have described above.


I should like very much to know whether this bird has

been successfully bred by any other member of the Avicultural

Society.



It is one of the species kept by the natives of India as a fighting bird.—E d.



