RED JUNGLEFOWL i8i 



and the cackle of fear uttered as birds are suddenly flushed is as much pheasant-like as 

 it resembles the corresponding utterance of a barnyard hen fluttering over a fence from 

 a pursuing dog. The peeps of wild chicks differ in no way from those of the fluffy 

 yellow ofl"spring of our domestic hen. 



In gait and carriage there is much difference between individual Junglefowl, the 

 same influence being at work here as in the case of the voice. The birds which haunt 

 the vicinity of villages have usually much more of what we are pleased to call a proud 

 carriage than the real jungle individuals. The tail is held higher and the movements 

 are slower and more dignified, as we interpret them. But once the real fowl of the 

 deep jungle is seen it will not be forgotten. 



I have seen many so-called Junglefowl in captivity and they satisfied all the 

 requirements of the casual observer, who would remark that such splendid carriage 

 was well worthy of the ancestor of our common fowls, and similar sentiments. But 

 the pair of birds which arrived at the London Zoo in 191 2 were almost the first real 

 feral Junglefowl I have ever seen in captivity. Dignity was absent ; the carriage was 

 that of an untamable leopard ; low-hung tail, slightly bent legs ; heads low, always 

 intent, listening, watching; almost never motionless, but winding in and out of the 

 shrubbery, striving to put every leaf possible between themselves and the observer! 

 To my mind, they fulfilled every ancestral requirement much more satisfactorily than 

 the usual Junglefowl type. It would take more than one generation to tame them. 

 They were wild as the pheasants of the Himalayas. Dignity and high-bred carriage 

 they doubtless had, but it was reserved for their kind ; for the combats and the 

 courtships of their own haunts, not struttings and steppings while mankind looked 

 on. All this is not a sentimental point of view, but a very real distinction. 



I have walked along a trail and suddenly come in sight of several Junglefowl, who 

 looked at me, drew up to their full height and hurriedly enough, but with raised tails, 

 took to the jungle. And again I have w^alked behind a soft-padding army elephant 

 in Northern Burma and caught a momentary glimpse of birds, slinking swiftly from 

 view with outstretched necks and trailing tails, or hurling themselves headlong into 

 the underbrush. There is no dignity in such birds in the loose, undesirable meaning 

 of the word as we use it, but there is caste, high caste, the feeling of undefiled lineage, 

 untainted by the degeneracy of a captive strain. 



The flight of wild Junglefowl is direct and swift. When amid dense undergrowth 

 they are able to rise almost vertically until clear of the vegetation and then fly strongly 

 to a neighbouring tree. This is their procedure when escaping from a sudden rush 

 of dogs, but they discriminate sharply if men disturb them, and without pause fly as 

 rapidly as possible out of sight, if on a slope invariably downhill. I once saw a cock 

 fly across a valley some half-mile in width, and as long as it remained in sight the 

 flight was as strong as a pheasant's, a number of quick wing-beats being followed by 

 a few seconds of scaling. Ordinarily where the bird is in sight from its rise until it 

 alights, especially if its course, as usual, be downward, the wing-beats are rapid and 

 continuous at first, while the latter half of the flight consists wholly of a motionless 

 scaling with bowed wings. 



This facility of flight seems all the more striking when we see it displayed by the 

 village fowls of many parts of the East. When, in riding over the trails or Government 



