JAVAN JUNGLEFOWL 253 



the fields. In the lowest part of the valley was the growing rice, and here they would 

 scurry swiftly along the enclosing embankments, frightening up the large doves as they 

 went. Now and then one would take a low, short flight across a stretch of rice, the 

 passing shadow of the bird sending out a flurry of scaling, twittering sandpipers. 



Beyond the rice-fields were ground pea and Indian corn, and after hesitating a while 

 in the dense tangle along the fences, the Junglefowl would gradually spread out and 

 feed. This tangle was composed chiefly of small aromatic plants and the orange- 

 flowered lantana. The cactus disappears before we reach these low, moist places. 



Many of the Junglefowl spend the day in the shade of these tangles, and come out 

 again in late afternoon. A few return when the sun gets high, to the cactus-guarded 

 limestone caves on the ridges, to come down again in the evening for water and a short 

 period of feeding. A few hungry youngsters may be found feeding out late in the 

 morning in the hot sun, but evening is the time when all are visible. In a short walk 

 across two fields, I disturbed thirteen, shooting three in the plumage which I wished 

 to study. 



Early in the morning, even before I had reached my place of concealment, I 

 would find a shrike in the top of almost every conspicuous bush, while bulbuls 

 babbled everywhere from the thickets. The shrill voices of little Java boys driving 

 cattle and goats would reach me from the dusty road. One or two native roosters 

 would crow in their lazy, blatant way, then, from half-way up the ridge, there would 

 come the sharp, crisp, virile Chaw-aw-awk I of the Green Junglefowl, and I knew 

 the splendid birds were on the move. The sun rises from behind a bank of cloud, 

 and a half-dozen white herons fly past up the valley. Overhead, watchful above a 

 green, unhealthy-looking pool, sits a little maroon kingfisher, perching motionless 

 until the Junglefowl have passed with low clucks on their way to the tangles at 

 the edges of the valley fields. 



Such in general is the haunt of these wild fowl. But unless we knew to the 

 contrary, we should never suspect a Junglefowl of inhabiting such a dreary, rocky 

 waste. Having nothing to fear from the natives in the way of guns, and, at least 

 in this part of the country, but seldom trapped, the birds were not unusually wary, 

 and when they were feeding, one could, with but little woodcraft, approach to 

 within range, whether of gun or of field-glasses. By locating their general range 

 and making as thorough a canvass as possible on one morning, I learned that at 

 least twenty-seven birds were living on or between the three limestone ridges nearest 

 my headquarters. Besides which I had shot eight others. There was, then, a total 

 of thirty-five Junglefowl which roosted or fed within considerably less than a square 

 mile of territory, and probably many others escaped my rough census. 



In September, these birds were in pairs or families, at least as regards their 

 roosting habits. In the daytime, when many of them would drift down into the 

 cultivated valley lands, there would at times be six or eight birds feeding close 

 together, half of which might be adult. But when they separated, never more than 

 a pair of old birds would go off together, either alone or with a following of well- 

 grown young of the year. 



I saw considerable evidence that the same individuals roosted in the same place 

 each night, and worked over much the same ground during the daily feeding, and I 



