GALLOPHEDIX. 423 



" The young brood continue with the mother for about two 

 months, by which time they are three parts full-grown. They seem 

 to evince considerable attachment to the parent, as I once shot a 

 hen in the Eastern Provinces that ^v•a3 feeding by the side o£ a 

 juDgle-track with three grown-up young ones, which evinced 

 considerable reluctance to leave her, running to and fro for a 

 sufficient time to have allowed me to have shot them all. 



" At times when the ' nilloo ' (Thunhergia fragrans), a plant the 

 seed of which the Jungle-fowl greatly affects, is in flower, great 

 numbers resort to the jungles of the upper hills of the Nuvara Elia 

 District, In 1868, a friend informs me, they bred on the Haughton 

 Plains, not far from the sanatarium, in large numbers. In April 

 the young broods were about with the hens, and when disturbed 

 either took refuge in the undergrowth or flew off in the trees. My 

 friend informs me that they were so numerous that he could have 

 knocked over dozens with a stick as they alighted on the branches 

 of the low jungle." 



One egg sent me from Ceylon by Colonel Legge, taken in June 

 1874, is a very regular oval of the usual hen's-egg shape, only 

 slightly more pointed at one end than the other. The shell is fine, 

 smooth and glossy ; the ground a delicate cafe-au-lait, everywhere 

 minutely speckled with brownish red, and besides this sparingly 

 spotted (the largest spot being about 0-08 in diameter) about the 

 more obtuse end with rather bright brownish red. 



This egg measures 1-71 by 1'31. 



Galloperdix spadiceus (Q-mel.). The Bed Sjiur-fowl. 



Galloperdix spadiceus {Om.), Jerd. B. Ind. ii, p. 541 : Hume, Rough 

 Draft N. Sf E. no. 814. 



The Eed Spur-fowl is abundant on the Nilghiris up to an eleva- 

 tion of 5000 feet, and may be met with up to their very 

 summits. It is the Spur-fowl of "Wynaad, the Malabar Coast, and 

 "Western Ghats, up to Mount Aboo and the Sirohee jungles. 

 Jerdon says it is also the Spur-fowl of the eastern parts of Central 

 India, in the high land between Nagpoor and the Nerbudda, and in 

 the Vindhian Eange. It is found also, he says, in the Rajmehal 

 and Khurukpoor HiUs. I found it north of the Ganges at 

 Tickroogunj on the extreme limits of the Purneah District (asso- 

 ciated here with Q. ferrugitieus, as it is at Aboo with O. sonnerati), 

 and in the Nepal and Goruckpoor Terai. 



Wherever it is found, it is, I believe, a permanent resident, and 

 there breeds. It lays, according to the locality, from the end of 

 February to the middle of June, and perhaps again in October and 

 November, although of this I am not sure. It makes a slight nest, 

 on the ground, of dry leaves and grass, often in a hollow' scratched 

 for the purpose, always in more or less dense undergrowth, and in 

 many parts of the country, I am told (though this is not my 

 experience), almost exclusively in bamboo-thickets. It is, I judge, 



