178 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 
concerned, but it is well to state the fact at once, so that the details of its life 
history may not be forgotten when we come to compare the feral and the domestic 
birds, and to attempt to trace the part which the cock and the hen have played in 
the history of mankind. 
It is difficult to correlate the habits or to present them in a uniform, inclusive 
summary in the case of a bird such as this, which ranges from the borders of 
Kashmir to the southern limits of Johore. I met with the Red Junglefowl in many 
countries and watched it under many varying conditions, and in most cases I have 
found it necessary to do away with the convenient generalizations which are so 
easy to make in the case of pheasants of more restricted range, living under more 
homogeneous ecological conditions. 
I believe the home range of the Junglefowl is of quite limited extent. I have 
been told by tea-planters of a family of these birds which inhabited a certain bit of 
bamboo jungle month after month, apparently never leaving it except to make short 
excursions for water and food. And these sedentary habits are, I believe, more 
pronounced in this group of birds than in most of the more typical pheasants. 
During the breeding season the birds which frequent some given area are seldom 
seen, retiring into the deeper, denser parts of the jungle. But there is no extensive 
wandering. Where wild birds get into the habit of feeding upon crops, or associating 
with domestic fowls, they correspondingly limit their home range even more, and 
when not molested, their comings and goings can be timed as accurately as in the 
case of the barnyard fowls themselves. 
Taking three thousand feet as an average maximum height, we find the Jungle- 
fowl living at a comparatively low elevation. The great proportion are not exposed 
to any but slight changes in annual temperature, and hence have no cause to make 
even limited seasonal migrations. The birds which range up the valleys and southern 
slopes of the Himalayas, are found breeding at a maximum height of about five 
thousand feet, while occasional records show that exceptional individuals may wander 
upward two thousand feet higher. These, of course, are affected by the approach of 
cold weather, and as I observed in Garhwal, descend several thousand feet to warmer 
altitudes, reascending when the warm weather again returns. So we see that with 
these local exceptions, no regular seasonal migration is to be found among Red 
Junglefowl. 
While the name Junglefowl is quite correct, bamboo-fowl would be even more 
appropriate, as they are especially fond of this type of vegetation, and as I look back 
over my memories of these birds, any visualizing of them is invariably accompanied 
by a background of the tall, curving stems and the soft foliage of bamboo. — 
Rarely I have found them in heavy tropical forest devoid of bamboo, and in 
the vicinity of the semi-arid plains they must needs be content with the shelter 
afforded by clumps of acacias and other similar plants. 
Throughout India the Junglefowls live of necessity more or less close to 
cultivated districts, and indeed, even in the less settled parts of Burma and the 
Malay States, I found them far more often in the vicinity of native villages than in 
the trackless depths of the jungle. This fact must be taken into consideration in 
speaking of their comparative abundance. On the whole Red Junglefowl show a 
