244 T?IE CEYLON JUNGLE-FOWL, 



species enter cultivated fields in large flocks, scratching and 

 picking up the grain with great ease until disturbed by the 

 approach of some passer-by." 



As TO their nidification Mr. Layard says : " The hen selects a 

 decaying stump or thick bush for a nesting place, and lays 

 from six to twelve eggs of a rich cream colour, finely mottled 

 with reddish brown spots. Axis, one inch nine lines ; diameter, 

 one inch four lines. The young when just hatched resemble 

 young chickens, and the old mother leads them to decaying 

 prostrate trees and scratches for white ants, which they eagerly 

 devour. They are hatched in June." 



Captain W. V. Legge, writing to me from Ceylon, says : 

 " Like Galloper dix zeylonensis, the Ceylon Jungle-Fowl would 

 appear to nest throughout a considerable portion of the year, or 

 else during the north-east monsoon, at different times, the same 

 pair rearing more than one brood and thus continuing to lay 

 until late into each season ; the latter may no doubt be the cor- 

 rect hypothesis. The facts of the case are these however ; 

 young broods may be seen about with the parents in the south- 

 west of the island as early as February. I have seen the same 

 in the south-east at the beginning of July, and have taken eggs 

 in the southern mountains on the 8th August. 



" The nest is situated in the jungle or forest, under the shelter 

 of a tree, log, or bush, and consists of a hole or slight hollow 

 scraped in the ground and a few leaves for lining. I have found 

 it placed close to the trunk of a forest tree between two project- 

 ing surface roots. The eggs are from two to four in number, 

 and vary in size and depth of ground colour, and also in the 

 quantity of the scanty markings which characterise them. 



" Four specimens varied from 1*62 to 177 in length, and 

 from 1*26 to 1 '3 5 in breadth. Two taken from the same nest 

 are reddish huff with minute calcareous specks on the whole 

 surface. The other two are stone white, finely stippled all over 

 with minute points of reddish grey, the former with a few faint 

 small spots of the same hue at the obtuse end, the latter spotted 

 more numerously at the same end with brownish red. 



" The young brood continue with the mother for about two 

 months, by which time they are three parts full grown. They 

 seem to evince considerable attachment to the parent, as I once 

 shot a hen in the Eastern Province that was feeding by the side 

 of a jungle track with three grown-up young ones, which 

 evinced considerable reluctance to leave her, running to and fro 

 for a sufficient time to have allowed me to have shot them all. 



" At times when the nilloo, a plant whose seed the Jungle- 

 Fowl greatly affects, is in flower, great numbers resort to the 

 jungles of the upper hills of the Nuvara Elia District. In 

 1868, a friend informs me, they bred on the Haughton Plains, 

 not far from the sanitarium, in large numbers. In April the 



