18J7.] On the Charj, or Otis Bengalensis. 885 



Even in the season of love the intercourse of the sexes among adults 

 is quite transitory, and is conducted without any of that jealousy and 

 pugnacity which so eminently distinguish most birds at that period. 

 In the season of love the troops of males and females come into the 

 same neighbourhood, but without mixing, A male that is amorously 

 disposed steps forth and by a variety of very singular proceedings, 

 quite analogous to human singing and dancing, he recommends himself 

 to the neighbouring bevy of females. He rises perpendicularly in the 

 air, humming in a deep peculiar tone, and flapping his wings. He lets 

 himself sink after he has risen some 15 or 20 yards; and again he 

 rises and again falls in the same manner, and with the same strange 

 utterance, and thus perhaps 5 or 6 times, when one of the females 

 steps forward, and with her he commences a courtship in the manner 

 of a Turkey-cock, by trailing his wings and raising and spreading his 

 tail, humming all the time as before. When thus, with what I must 

 call song and dance, the rites of Hymen have been duly performed, the 

 male retires to his company, and the female to her's ; nor is there any 

 appearance (I have, at some cost,* had the birds watched most closely) 

 of further or more enduring intimacy between the sexes than that just 

 recorded, nor any evidence that the male ever lends his aid to the 

 female in the tasks of incubation and of rearing the young. The pro- 

 creative instinct having been satisfied, the female retires into deep grass 

 cover and there, at the root of a thick tuft of grass, with very little sem- 

 blance of a nest, she deposits two eggs, never more nor less, unless the 

 first be destroyed. If the eggs be handled in her absence, she is sure to 

 discover it and to destroy them herself. The eggs are of the size and 

 shape of an ordinary domestic fowl's, but one sensibly larger and more 

 richly coloured than the other. This larger and more highly tinted 

 egg is that of the male young, the smaller and less richly hued egg, 

 that of the female progeny. The female sits on her eggs about a 

 month, and the young can follow her very soon after they chip the egg. 

 In a month they are able to fly ; and they remain with the mother for 

 nearly a year, or till the procreative impulse again is felt by her, when 

 she drives off the long since fully grown young. Two females com- 

 monly breed near each other, whether for company or mutual aid and 

 help ; and thus the coveys, so to speak, though they arc not literal ly 

 * Unhappily I lost a valuable man by malaria. 



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