Each male is accompanied by a female in a separate cage. Set on 
the sidelines, each female, in the excitement of combat, is said to 
encourage her male to his best efforts by frequent, ringing calls. It 
was not unusual for several thousand ruppees to be laid on the outcome 
of a single main. Unlike fighting cocks, metal spurs are seldom used, 
but the birds' own spurs are often filed down to a fine point. Some birds 
fight to the death, others give up and shy away from pure exhaustion, 
Fighting birds are kept in condition with a diet of termites, un- 
cooked wheat flour mixed with boiled butter, called "ghee", millet soaked 
in milk, crushed almonds, peanuts, green food, and a very little water. 
As a decoy for hunting and trapping -- Gray francolins are less 
commonly snared by using live decoys than are blacks though the pugna- 
cious nature of the former make them relatively easy to catch by this 
method. Hume (26) describes the procedure in the following words: 
"In early morning or late afternoon, a tame bird is set down in its 
cage in a small opening in the jungle. To this cage, and also spread on 
the ground, are attached several fine horsehair snares. By whistling 
through his (the trapper's) teeth or blowing on the bird, it is soon 
making the jungle ring with its calling. Wild males answer and soon wild 
birds with heads up, wings down and tails spread emerge from the jungle, 
do a war dance around the cage and try to get at the bird inside until 
one of the assailants finds himself fast by the leg. Disturbed by the 
necessity of releasing the captive, the rest return to the fray after 
but a few minutes." 
As a game bird -~ We enjoyed many marvelous days afield in quest of 
these francolins. It was rather surprising to find that several of our 
friends in Pakistan considered these francolins to be poor shooting unless 
driven because many birds ran from shrub to shrub clump ahead of the 
hunter. Sone usually squat and hide, however, providing good, close shots. 
Hume (26) quotes Captain Butler as saying, ''The most successful way 
of shooting gray partridges is to take a dog with you; any dog that will 
hunt will do. The birds then, instead of running, fly up into the near- 
est tree from whence they can be easily dislodged and shot." 
In the Indian subcontinent far more gray francolins than all the 
other game birds put together are shot. We have found these birds to 
be fast, sporty shooting whether driven before beaters or put up in- 
dividually by walking. They can also maintain their numbers year after 
year in the face of heavy hunting pressure, As an experiment Balbir Singh, 
a District Commissioner, his son and Bump, with eight beaters, hunted the 
same 300 acres of cultivation and scrub near Gurgoan, India, on four con- 
secutive weekends, The first day we flushed at least 100 birds and shot 
24. On the fourth weekend about 20 birds were put up, of which 5 were 
killed, This was more intensive hunting than is to be expected in most 
American coverts. Singh reports 136 grays to have been bagged by 6 guns 
in an equal number of hours hunting in the same district in 1962. 
78 
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