GALLUS. 419 



occasionally scraping a few leaves or a little dry grass together to 

 form a nest." 



In the ' Field,' ' Ornithognomon ' writes : — " The period of incu- 

 bation varies according to locality, but is generally at the beginning 

 of the rains, i. e. June. I have seen eggs, however, in March. 

 She selects for the purpose of nidification some secret thicket in 

 the most retired and dense part of the jungle, scraping together a 

 few leaves on the ground by way of nest. She remains as part 

 of the cock's seraglio until some seven to ten or a dozen eggs have 

 been deposited in the above spot, to which she stealthily repairs 

 every day, and finally quits her party and retires alone and unseen 

 to perform the duties of incubation. The chicks are hatched as 

 usual in about twenty days, and run about, following the mother, as 

 soon as they have emerged from the egg-shell ; and she leads them 

 about, teaching them how to find their own sustenance, till they 

 are big enough to shift for themselves, by which time the young 

 cocks, finding that they cannot in honour come within a few yards 

 of each other without a battle, separate, each one taking some of 

 his sisters with him. These particulars I have gathered from 

 native informants; but I can add from my own experience that 

 either the season of incubation is uncertain, or that the hens lay 

 in the cold season with no more ulterior views than the domestic 

 birds, for both in February and March I have heard them emit that 

 peculiar cackle tuJc-tuJc-tuk-tuJc-tuJcauk, by which every one knows 

 a hen in a farmyard proclaims to the good housewife a fresh ac- 

 quisition to her larder." 



A good deal of this is purely "native." In tiiejlist place, the 

 nests are not really generally so very caref idly hidden ; they are in 

 thickets no doubt, but fully half of them are so far open that no 

 one given to bird-nesting could possibly pass them. In the second, 

 go near the nest when you like, — morning, noon, or evening, — be 

 there one egg or six in the nest, your dogs are certain to put the 

 hen up quite close. In the third place, how each young cock is to 

 go away taking some of his sisters with him I do not know. Cer- 

 tainly to judge from the young birds one kills in October and 

 November (when they are as fat as butter and most delicious), 

 fully as many young cocks as hens are reared. Lastly, 1 am quite 

 certain that they are not always polygamous. I do not agree with 

 Hutton that they are monogamous, because I have constantly 

 found several hens in company with a single cock ; but I have also 

 repeately shot pairs without finding a single other hen in the 

 neighbourhood, and if you have good dogs (and you can do nothing 

 in jungle with either these or Pheasants without dogs) you are 

 sure to see and hear, even if you get no shot at them, all the birds 

 there are. 



Major Wardlaw Eamsay writes : — " I took eleven eggs from a 

 nest in Karen-nee on the 14th March. The eggs were simply laid 

 in a small hollow scratched out by the bird under a fallen branch." 



Major Bingham, writing from Tenasserim, says : — " In the Zinz- 

 away reserve, near the Tonzaleen river, I found several nests with 



27* 



