228 THE RED JUNGLE-FOWL. 



days, they always eventually betook themselves to the jungles 

 and disappeared. If kept confined with other fowls, however, 

 they readily interbreed, and the broods will then remain quiet 

 under domestication, and always exhibit, both in plumage and 

 marner, much more of the wild than of the tame stock, 

 preferring at night to roost on the branches of trees. Mr. Blyth 

 has remarked that his cross-breed eggs never produced chicks, 

 but I have never found any difficulty in this respect. The 

 crowing of the cock birds is very shrill and like that of the 

 Frizzled Bantams. In the wild state it is monogamous." 



Dr. Jerdon states that "the hen breeds from January to July, 

 according to the locality, laying eight to twelve eggs, of a 

 creamy white colour, often under a bamboo clump or in some 

 dense thicket, occasionally scraping a few leaves or a little 

 dried grass together to form a nest." 



In the Field, " Ornithognomon" writes : " The period of in- 

 cubation varies, according to locality, but is generally at the 

 beginning of the rains, i. e., June. I have seen eggs, however, 

 in March. The hen selects for the purpose of nidification some 

 secret thicket in the most retired and dense part of the jungle, 

 scraping together a few leaves on the ground by way of nest. 

 She remains as part of the cock's seraglio until some seven to 

 ten or a dozen eggs have been deposited in the above spot, to 

 which she stealthily repairs every day, and finally quits her 

 party and retires alone and unseen to perform the duties of in- 

 cubation. The chicks are hatched as usual in about twenty 

 days, and run about, following the mother, as soon as they have 

 emerged from the egg-shell ; and she leads them about, teach- 

 ing them how to find their own sustenance, till they are big 

 enough to shift for themselves, by which time the young cocks, 

 finding that they cannot in honour come within a few yards of 

 each other without a battle, separate, each one taking some 

 of his sisters with him. These particulars I have gathered 

 from native informants ; but I can add from my own experience 

 that either the season of incubation is uncertain, or that the 

 hens lay in the cold season with no more ulterior views than 

 the domestic birds, for both in February and March I have heard 

 them emit that peculiar cackle tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tukauk ! by which 

 every one knows a hen in a farmyard proclaims to the good 

 housewife a fresh acquisition to her larder." 



A good deal of this is purely "native." In the first place, 

 the nests are not really generally so very carefully hidden ; they 

 are in thickets no doubt, but fully half of them are so far open 

 that no one given to bird-nesting could possibly pass them. In 

 the second, go near the nest when you like, — morning, noon, or 

 evening, — be there one egg or six in the nest, your dogs are 

 certain to put the hen up quite close. In the third place, how 

 each young cock is to go away taking some of his sisters with 

 him I do not know. Certainly, to judge from the young birds 



