40 LOTSY AND KUIPER, A PRELIM. STATEMENT OF THE RESULTS OF MR. 
out of breath, it was instantly taken up by asecond and so ad nauseam. 
The note of alarm was the syllable chop! chop! chop! or op! op! uttered 
many times, sharply and in quick succession. The hen has a somewhat 
different note. The call-note sounds like chak, chak, chak, the call of 
suspicion is a high, strident ak-kak-kak-kak-kak kept up at rapida 
rate from ten seconds to half a minute. The crow of the cock is a crisp, 
virile Chaw-aw-awk! 
When in an emotional state of suspicion the cocks held their head 
high, the position distending the brilliant throat wattleinto a gorgeous 
sheet of color. The tail was, at the same time, lowered until the fea- 
thers fairly dragged on the ground. They are strong on the wing, al- 
though, like the other species of the genus, they will not use these or- 
gans unless forced to, but trust to their swiftness of foot. 
The tail is usually carried low, in crowing it may be held fairly high 
or drooping, when approaching a rival or courting a hen, it is raised to 
the usual carriage in a domestic cock 
Termites enter largely into the diet of G varius, but they also eat 
grains and berries and leaves among others of Lantana mixta, also the 
fruit of Cactus, both plants introduced into Java from America. Besi- 
des they eat almost every kind of insects, also small crabs, shrimps and 
mollusks. BEEBE saw them roosting on Cactiand bamboo. He also on- 
ce saw them fly over the sea for some seventy-five yards to an isolated 
mangrove-island. In one case he found them roosting on a ledge ina 
cave, among scores of tiny bats hanging from the walls. Wild boars are 
said to do much damage in ferreting out the eggs and devouring them. 
The breeding season corresponds with some portion of the dry season, 
from June to November, more often in the first month or two of the 
East Monsoon. The method of courtship does not differ from that of G. 
bankiva, except that the head is brought more prominently into display ; 
the cock seems to be aware of the beauty of its comb and wattle. BEE- 
BE saw them only in pairs, other observers report that the species is 
sometimes polygamous, a cock having as many as four hens in a harem. 
The nest is usually a hollow in the ground hidden amongst dense vege- 
tation of some kind, several however have been found in the shelter of a 
clump of epiphytic ferns growing at some height against the trunk of a 
tree and again, more than one has been found in the heart of a tree- 
fern top, surrounded by the curving fronds with a lining of the soft red 
down from the stalks of the leaves. 
