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 ! 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 
