222 THE RED JUNGLE-FOWL. 



jungle. To a stranger it is not a little curious to hear the 

 familiar sounds of our farmyards issuing from the depths of 

 the wild forest. 



" This bird must be sought in all jungly country which is 

 partly cultivated ; and where paddy fields extend in long 

 strips into the forest, two sportsmen walking one on each side 

 just within the cover, with a line of beaters between them, can 

 enjoy very pretty shooting. The fowls rise from the stubble 

 and fly into the wood, passing over head, and the sport resem- 

 bles Pheasant-shooting in England, the flight and size of the 

 birds being pretty similar. When the fields have been cleared 

 of the fowls, the shooting may be continued with success in the 

 woods if they be pretty open and the sportsman furnished 

 with spaniels the sight of which forces the birds to tree, from 

 whence very pretty snap shots may be obtained, as they will 

 often rest on a high branch till the sportsman has arrived under- 

 neath before taking wing again. Both cocks and hens make 

 a desperate cackling and flutter when thus roused up by dogs, 

 and I know of no shooting which requires greater nerve and 

 steadiness. If there are no dogs the birds will not tree, but run 

 slyly and silently along and are seen no more, unless you be 

 mounted on an elephant, when it is easy enough to pot them, 

 should you be so minded, as they skulk under the brushwood. 

 Like the Phasianidae, wild poultry are omnivorous. They are 

 not subject to migrations, even to the extent to which Pea-Fowl 

 shift their quarters ; but in the hot season and the rains they 

 retire deeper into the woods, the cultivated tracts no longer 

 affording food, while the sylvan recesses provide seclusion and 

 shelter for breeding." 



To a certain extent the Jungle-Fowl is omnivorous, and will 

 eat not only grass and young shoots and flower buds, and seeds 

 and grain of all kinds, but worms and grasshoppers and beetles 

 and small land shells, but they are preferentially gram- 

 inivorous, and I have examined scores which had eaten 

 absolutely nothing but grain. 



In the autumn, after the millet fields have ripened, they 

 grow very fat on this grain, and the birds of the year are then 

 really good eating, but, as a rule, the birds one shoots (be it 

 confessed with shame, for it ought to be a close season) from 

 March to June, tiger-shooting in the Tarai, when, the day's 

 sport over, one turns homeward towards the tents, are no whit 

 better than ordinary village fowls. 



Captain Baldwin, the well-known author of the " Game of 

 Bengal," tells us that — 



"The Jungle-Fowl is generally found in very thick jungle 

 bordering rivers like the Sarda in Pilibhit, specially when the 

 banks of streams are much cut up and intersected by ravines 

 with thick patches of overhanging bushes ; wooded islands in 

 rivers, near the foot of the hills, are also likely spots. 



