H OUWINK’S EXPER. CONC. THE ORIGIN OF SOME DOMESTIC ANIMALS 33 
habitually monogamous, cases of 2 and 3 hens to one cock however are 
known, mated pairs appear to remain together throughout the year. 
The crow is very characteristic and may be syllabled Kuck-Kaya-K ya- 
Kuckending with a low, double syllable, like Kyukun, kyukun, accor- 
ding to DAVIDSON, and this, BEEBE says, is the best published trans- 
cription with which he is familiar. BEEBE himself indicates it thus: 
LS 
= 
a 1 


Peer 
h | 
but says that perhaps an octave higher Seal be nearer the pitch. 
The alarm call consists of three short notes in a high key, like tuck- 
tuck-tuck. or kuck-kuck-kuck, the middle syllable, or rather word, 
for the notes are quite separate, emphasized and somewhat higher 
than the other two. When put up by an enemy they go off with a loud 
kakakakakak! with the a as in the word , that”. The tail is carried low, 
except when the bird is courting, or approaching a rival. The flight is ra- 
pid and strong: Their chief food is various seeds and grains, small fruits 
and berries, with occasionally leaves and flower petals, while insec:s of 
almost any order, but especially termites, are acceptable. Sometimes 
their crops will be crammed with nothing but grass seeds, or again mil- 
let from the fields of the natives, or after land has been burnt over, they 
enyoy the tender, juicy shoots of newly sprouted grass. Like bankiva 
and lafayetti they roost in trees or-on bamboo. They are exceedingly 
wary and consequently hard to shoot. There are breeding records from 
October to July, even one record from South Travancore of a nest and 
eggs found an Aug. 20. The nest may be a natural depression in the 
ground, devoid of any lining whatever, but usually the parent scratches 
out a hollow, almost always close against the trunk of a tree or under 
the shelter of some bush, which is lined with dead leaves. Frequently al- 
so nests are placed on the top of dead, half decayed stumps, from two 
to four feet above the ground. The number of eggs in the nests seems 
to differ at different localities, in Kanara there are apparently never 
more than four in a nest, south of Mt. Abu six to seven seems to be the 
average number, while in the Nilgiris and Southward, 8 or 9 to |3 are 
recorded. 
There is great variation in the colour and size of the eggs, and when 
the extremes are compared it would never be supposed that they were 



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