
plains of the Ganges are too heavily cultivated to provide junglefowl 
habitat, but to the south, east of a line through Jhansi and Nagpur, 
to the Godavari River and along it to the Bay, red junglefowl are 
usually to be found wherever terrain is rough or there are forests. 
Along the lower flanks of the Himalayas, from 1,200 to 6,000 feet, the range 
of the junglefowl averlaps that of the kalij pheasant so that either 
or both may be flushed from the same covert. 
No reliable records of abundance have been maintained. In 
some areas, 15 birds may be flushed in a day's hunt; in others 200 
or more may be driven over a line of hunters by 15 to 20 beaters in 
the same period. In India, the species is not considered to be cyclic 
though fairly substantial variations in abundance have been noted from 
year to year. In the Siwalik foothills and adjacent lowlands, south 
of Dehra Dun an estimate of 1 bird per 5 to 10 acres for the winters 
of 1959-61 might be conservative. 
Description 
In its breeding plumage the male red junglefowl is a striking 
bird, with white ear lobes, long orange and black mantle, orange and 
red rump feathers with a tuft of white at the base of the tail, blackish, 
sickle-shaped, inner tail feathers glossed with almost metallic green, 
and blackish-brown breast. Stuart Baker (3) has described these birds 
in detail as follows: | 
"Male 
"Crown of head, nape, upper mantole and sides of neck deep 
bright orange-red changing to reddish-black down their centres; upper 
back black glossed with blue or green; lower back deep maroon-red, 
highly glossed and gradually changing into fiery-orange on the long 
hackles of the rump, the centres of these hackles black but concealed 
by those overlying them; upper tail-coverts and tail black, brilliantly 
glossed with green, blue-green or copper-green, the blue generally 
dominant on the coverts and all gloss absent or obsolete on the 
outermost tail-feathers; least wing-coverts and shoulder of wing black 
glossed like the back; median wing-coverts like the lower back; 
greater coverts black; quills dark brown or blackish, the primaries 
edged on the outer web with light cinnamon, outer secondaries with much 
broader edges and the innermost glossy blue-green; under plumage blackish- 
brown faintly glossed with green. 
"Iris reddish-brown, red, or orange-red; comb brick-red to 
scarlet-crimson; wattles a rather more livid red; lappets white, sometimes 
