INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS lii 'iiiifiiiii'iii ti ^ LX LIBRI5 ERNEST ALAN VAN VLECK ^ >^^^'^ FORTHE PEOPLE FOR EDVCATION FORSCIENCE LIBRARY OF THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY INDIAN SPOiniNO BIRDS INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS BY FKANK jFINN, B.A., F.Z.S. LATE DL'.PUTY SUPERINTENDENT, INDIAN MUSEUM, CALCUTTA Author of " The Waterfoiol of India mid Asia," " The Game-Birds of India and Asia," ^^ Hoic to Kiww the Indian Waders," &c., dx. With over 100 Illustrations from^Hume and Marshall's " Game-Birds of India, Burma and Ceylon " LONDON FRANCIS EDWARDS 83a, high street, MARYLEBONE, W. 1915 3v^-\-^>>-^^ Q - V*A— ^ ^ •• 'K .;X4^. #' ^//^fi /■• ■ , ? V. aJlar Chromci Lilh.lS.Eatton Garden Londo CROSSOPTILON TIBETANUM INTKODUCTION. India is a remarkable country in many ways, and not the least so in that, in spite of a civilization of immemorial antiquity, there remains in our Eastern dominions such a rich profusion and variety of wild life, even the large quadrupeds, so soon exter- minated by civilized man, persisting in considerable numbers. This wealth of mammalian life naturally attracts the attention of sportsmen, to the exclusion, to some extent, of bird-shooting ; yet the opportunities for the latter sport are just as excellent, and no country can show such an immense variety of sporting birds as India and our other Eastern provinces, while the indi- vidual abundance of the species is remarkable, when we consider that there is no such systematic war made upon their natural enemies as is the case in Europe; in fact, the "vermin," furred and feathered, work their will practically unchecked, and to them we must add a horde of reptilian villains, snakes, crocodiles, and carnivorous water-tortoises and lizards. The native also poaches light-heartedly everywhere, though it must be admitted that here he is only " getting his own back," as the feathered game is so numerous, and so little indented upon by a population largely vegetarian, that the comparative harmlessness of humanity to the feathered world is ungratefully repaid by considerable devastation of the crops in many districts. The worst offenders in this way are geese and cranes, but ducks do a good deal of harm to the paddy, so that in shooting wild-fowl one is often doing actual good to the cultivator, as well as getting amusement and food ; moreover, the majority of our wild-fowl being migrants from the northern regions where they breed, the stock is capable of being drawn on to a very large extent. The same remarks apply to the harmless and indeed beneficial snipe and golden plover, which, the former at any rate, form so great a stand-by of the sportsman everywhere, and to vi. INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS most of the sand-grouse, and some bustards ; but care should be exercised in attacking the resident species of these groups, which need consideration as much as the typical game-birds of the pheasant family, under which also come the peafowl, jungle- fowl, tragopans, monauls, partridges, and quails. Of these the common or grey quail is our only migratory visitor, and being excessively abundant and widespread is the only bird of the family which is a real stand-by for shooting in the way that the various wild-fowl and snipes are. Rails are not usually shot, but, as they are regarded as game on the continent of Europe and in the United States, and as Hume thought them worth figuring, they are dealt with here along with their kin, the moorhens and coot. Many of these are also winter visitors. But it is of course the pheasants and their allies that are the peculiar glory of Indian sporting birds, and though at present they play a very insignificant part in sport compared to their importance in Europe, systematic protection in the future ought ultimately to render them at least the equals of the water and marsh birds in this connection. Our Indian Empire is beyond comparison the richest of regions in these birds, and is indeed the metropolis of the family, including all the finest groups, except the turkeys, true grouse, and guinea-fowls. Sporting birds are not only of interest to sportsmen, but to naturalists they are not surpassed in interest by any other groups on account of the frequent points of interest in their habits, and the unrivalled beauty of plumage which many of them display. The visitations of the migratory species — fluctuations of the commoner kinds and occurrences of the rarer ones — are also well worthy of scientific study, and much has been learnt in these particulars since the publication of Hume and Marshall's valu- able work, which has of course been largely indented on in the present one, as have also the valuable publications of Mr. E, C. Stuart Baker and other contributors to the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. In recording the occurrence of rare birds, it is not necessary that the sportsman should be able to prepare skins of his speci- mens, or that he should forgo eating them if rations are short ; it is sufficient for purposes of identification if the head and a INTRODUCTION vii. wing and foot be dried and if possible treated with some skin- preservative — in fact, for very big birds the head alone will be enough, and in the case of snipe the tail affords the best character for discrimination. The scientific names used are those of the " Fauna of British India" bird volumes, now the standard work on general Indian ornithology, and where a species does not occur in these the naming of the " British Museum Catalogue of Birds " has been followed. Where the scientific name on the plate differs from these the fact has been indicated.^ Frank Finn. ' Errata. — This has been overlooked in the case of the Bar-tailed Godwit {Limosa riifa on the plate) ; and the plate of the White-crested Kalij, referred 'to in the foot-note on p. 183, is not one of those in this book. On p. 205, also,"C'enon/t5 should read Tnujopan. - o LIST OF PLATES. Mallard ... Facing page 1 Spotted-bill 5 Gadwall >» 7 Bronze-capped Duck ... ... ,, 9 Pintail ... ,, 11 Shoveller !. 13 Common Teal ... ,, 15 Garganey ,, 17 Clucking Teal ,, 19 Marbled Teal ,, 21 Andaman Teal »1 23 Pink-headed Duck Facing list of plates Wigeon . . . Facing ijage 25 Common Pochard 27 White-eyed Pochard ... 29 Tufted Pochard 33 Scaup ... 35 Ked-crested Pochard ... 37 Golden-eye 39 Smew ... 41 Goosander 43 Comb-Duck 47 Cotton-Teal 49 Buddy Sheldrake 51 Common Sheldrake ... 53 White-winged Wood-Duck ... 55 Small Whistler 57 Large Whistler 59 Bar-headed Goose 61 Grey-lag Goose 63 Pink footed Goose 65 Bean-Goose 67 White-fronted Goose 69 Dwarf Goose ... 71 Mute Swan and Whooper 73 Bewick's Swan 75 Common Snipe and Jack-Snipe 77 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS Crake Pintail Snipe ... Eastern Solitary Snipe Wings and tails of Wood-, Eastern Solitary, Fantail and Pintail Snipes Wood-Snipe ... Woodcock Painted Snipe ... Black-tailed Godwit, summer and winter plumage Bar-tailed Godwit, summer and winter plumage Snipe-billed Godwit ... Armstrong's Yellowshanks Indian Water-Eail Blue-breasted Banded Eail Banded Crake Malayan Banded Crake and Whity-brown Andamanese Banded Crake ... Spotted Crake ... Little Crake Eastern Baillon's Crake Euddy Crake and Elwes's Crake Brown Crake ... Sarus Crane Common Crane White Crane ... Demoiselle Crane Great Indian Bustard Florican Eggs of Great Indian Bustard and Likh European Great Bustard Spotted Sand grouse ... Eggs of Baillon's Crake, Close-barred Sand-grouse, Megapode, Painted Snipe, and Blue-breasted Banded Eail Close-barred Sand-grouse Tibetan Sand-grouse ... Burmese and Indian Peacock Eed Jungle-fowl Grey Jungle-fowl Ceylon Jungle-fowl Nepal Kali] Black-backed Kalij Purple Kalij Lineated Kalij Crawford's Silver Pheasant .. Fire-back Pheasant ... White Eared- Pheasant . Facing page 81 83 85 89 91 95 97 99 101 103 105 107 109 111 113 115 117 119 121 123 Frontispiece . Facing page 125 ,, 127 ,, 129 ,, 131 , , 135 , , 137 >> 143 - 147 I 149 ,, 155 ,, 157 ,, 161 ,, 171 ,, 175 )) 177 ,, 185 , , 187 )) 189 ,, 191 ,, 193 , , 195 Facing Introduction LIST OF PLATES xi. Koklass Pheasant Facing page 197 Koklass Pheasant, Nepal race ... ... ... ,, 199 Cheer Pheasant ,, 201 Bamboo Partridge ... ... ... ... ... ,, 221 Eggs of Western Tragopan, Brown Crake, Painted Quail, Tibetan Partridge, Spotted Sand-grouse, and Himalayan Snow-cock ... ... ... ,, 223 Burmese Francolin and Hybrid between Black and Painted Partridges ... ... ... ... ,, 23S Snow-Partridge ... ... ... ... ... ,, 241 Eggs of Rain-Quail, Sarus Crane, White-eyed Pocliard, and White-cheeked Hill-Partridge .. . ,, 247 Brown-breasted Hill-Partridge ... ... ... ,, 249 Charlton's Hill-Partridge ,, 251 Red-crested Partridge ... ... ... ... ,, 253 Chestnut Wood- Partridge ... ... ... ... ,, 255 Jungle Bush-Quail ... ... ... ... ... „ 257 Rock Bush-Quail , 259 Painted Bush-Quail ,, 261 Blewitt's Painted Bush-Quail 263 Common Quail ... ... ... ... ... ,, 265 Rain-Quail ,, 267 Painted Quail ,, 269 Indian Yellow-legged Button-Quail ... ... ,, 271 Burmese Yellow-legged Button-Quail ... ... ,, 273 Nicobar Yellow-legged Button-Quail ... ... ,, 275 Little Button-Quail ... 277 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS. Mallard. Alias hoscas. Nil-sir, Hindustani. Althouf:;h mallard are far from being generally distributed over our Eastern Empire, as being the wild ducks of the Northern Hemisphere generally, and the ancestors of most of our tame ducks, they deserve to head the list of typical ducks, being also themselves the type of all and exemplifying several points which must be referred to by anyone dealing with the group. The lovely green head, white collar, chocolate breast, curled black tail, and splendid wing-bar of blue and white are so distinctive of the mallard drake that little need be said about his plumage, which has for the most part a sober pencilled-grey coloration, beautifully setting off the brighter tints. But the female, whose plumage, as is usual in the most typical ducks, is of a mottled-brown tint, is naturally much like several others ; her distinguishing mark is the blue, white-edged wing-bar which she shares with the drake. This blue ribbon-mark will distinguish her from all our ducks but the Chinese grey duck or yellow nib {Alias zonorhyncha), which bird has a black bill with a yellow tip, and is much greyer in tint, with a dark sooty belly. The bill of the female mallard is dull orange, with a large, dull black patch occupying most of the centre part ; the drake's is a sort of sage-green, sometimes verging on yellow. This point is worth mentioning, because when the drake goes into undress plumage the colour of his bill does not change as in some species at this time. In plumage the mallard in this "eclipse" stage is very like the female, but not exactly, the crown of the head and the lower back down to the tail being black, not 2 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS streaked with brown. Young drakes assume a plumage similar to this for the first feathering, though at first sight all the brood look much alike. The undress plumage is assumed after breed- ing, about June, and lost about September ; it comes on at the time when all the great wing-quills are moulted, so that the birds cannot fly for some weeks. This peculiarity of putting on a plumage more or less like that of the female characterizes most ducks in the Northern Hemisphere when the sexes have a very distinct plumage ; it is curious that it is carried in the summer, when most birds are in the highest feather ; but the facts that it is really a winter plumage in the cotton-teal, and almost so in the garganey, and that ducks as a matter of course start courting in the autumn as soon as they get their gay plumage, suggest that it is really a winter plumage that has had a tendency to be shifted earlier and earlier till it is now a summer one. Mallard weigh in the wild state in India about two and a half to three pounds in the case of drakes, and even up to four ; females are about two, and may approach three. Domestic ducks in India are not much bigger than this, though they may look so on account of their coarseness and loose feathering ; as they often resemble mallard in colour it is just as well to be careful how one shoots at unusually unsuspicious-looking ducks until one is sure they really are wild. Wild mallard in India are not as a rule to be expected away from the North-west, and even there it is only in the extreme end of that region that they are abundant ; and south of Bombay they are unknown. As a straggler the mallard occurs all along our Northern Provinces as far as Mandalay ; in Cachar, Mr. E. C. S. Baker reports it as "not very rare." One wants to be quite sure, however, of any given bird being really a mallard when it is shot out of the North-west Province ; of course the full-plumaged drake is unmistakable, but there are several ducks very like the female, the yellow-nib even having the blue wing- bar as above noted. As mallard breed in Kashmir they often have not very far to come to get to their winter quarters in some cases, though many winter in Kashmir itself ; in Sind they are very common, and it is only here that hundreds may be seen in a flock ; elsewhere the parties are small, and odd specimens. MALLARD 3 where the species is rare, may be found associating with other kinds of duck. The habits of this duck are thoroughly well known, as almost everyone, even if not a sportsman, has had ample opportunities of observing the bird in a protected state in parks. It is not highly specialized in any way, but a thoroughly robust and vigorous bird ; it swims, walks, and flies, with ease and efficiency, but in no separate department equals some other species — for instance, it cannot fly so well as a gadwall, run so well as a sheldrake, or swim so fast as a pochard. It dives fairly well to save its life, or in play, but seldom does so to get food ; when I have seen this done it has always been by females or young birds, never by old drakes ; but the action is a rare one even with the other sex when adult. Females, however, are also said to be more cautious and cunning in concealing themselves after being wounded than males. When a pair are together on the water, the drake waits for the duck to rise first ; his note, a faint wheezing quaijkh, is very distinct from the duck's well-known quack or rather quaak ; but though this was pointed out by White of Selborne more than a century ago, it does not seem to have been fully realized even now that the same distinction of voice applies to a large number of the ducks, and that the two notes in these cannot be inter- changed, the drake having a large bulb in the windpipe at its bifurcation towards the lungs, which absolutely modifies the sound and prevents him giving the female call, while similarly she cannot imitate his. In the breeding season the mallard drake whistles as well as wheezes, and the duck talks affection- ately to him in short staccato quacks, with sidelong noddings of the head ; he for his part plays up to her by rearing up with his head bent down, then dropping on the water and jerking up his stern, at the same time displaying by a slight expansion of the plumage the bar on his wings. Anyone may see these antics among domestic ducks — common ones, I mean, not Muscovy ducks, which have very different ways, and are descended from the South- American Cairina moschata. Mallard, in conformity with their usual unspecialized ways, are not particular about the water they frequent so long as it 4 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS affords safety dining time of rest, or food when they are in search of this. Thus they will frequent small dirty ponds or big open broads ; feed on land as well as in water, and by day as well as by night. In fact, I think many ducks are chiefly made nocturnal by our persecution ; I rather fancy that the mandarin is really the only true night bird in the family, as he is habitually very quiet during the day even in captivity. The food of mallard is pretty nearly everything : corn, herbage, roots, worms, or any other small animal life, berries, acorns, &c., &c. ; as long as there is plenty, they are not particular. They are themselves almost always excellent, at any rate in India. They breed in Kashmir, in May and June, making a well- concealed, down-lined nest among ground cover, as a rule ; now and then among water-plants, rarely in trees ; the eggs are usually eleven and their grey-green colour is well known. The ducklings are clad in black and yellow down. The Indian native names, besides Nilsir, are Lilg in Nepal, with the female form Lilgahi. Spottcd-bill. Alias poecilorhyncJia. Garm-pai, Hindustani. The spotted-bill might well be called the Indian mallard ; it is so like the female of that bird, or rather perhaps like some abnormally coloured tame duck, that it would hardlj^ attract attention at a distance, the only conspicuous colour point being the broad snow-white streak along the sides of the dark hinder back, wiiich streak is the outer webs of the innermost wing- feathers. Close at hand, several detailed differences become noticeable ; the brilliant and characteristic coloration of the bill, twin-spotted w^ith scarlet at the forehead, jet-black in the middle, and rich j-ellow at the tip ; the bright green instead of blue wing-bar ; and the way in which the plumage, pale drab speckled with black in the forequarters, gradually shades into black at the stern, a style of coloration never matched among all the many varieties of the tame duck. In young spotted-bills the characteristics of the species are not so well developed ; the colours of the beak not being >> - s- w _^ ^ 1^ 7^ SPOTTED-BILL 5 separated into the definite tricolour in many instances, the base being orange and the sides as well as the tip yellow. When it comes to the voice, the relationship of the spotted-bill and mallard is again obvious at once ; in both the quack of the duck and the wheeze of the drake are the same, although the latter in the spotted-bill bears the same unpretentious plumage as his mate. In weight spotted-bill are pretty much the same as mallard ; there is, perhaps, not quite so much difference in the size of the sexes in the Indian bird, and the male spotted-bill does not run so heavy as some mallard — it is a noticeably lighter-built bird when the two are closely compared in life. The spotted-bill inhabits nearly all our Empire, but is not found in Southern Burma or the islands of the Bay of Bengal ; nor does it ascend the hills higher than about 4,000 ft. It never leaves our limits entirely, but, like all birds whose liveli- hood depends on water, has to shift its quarters more or less to secure favourable conditions. In Central India and in Manipur it is more common than anywhere else. It is not very particular about its haunts, frequenting small or large ponds, running or standing water ; but on the whole standing water with plenty of cover is most to its taste. It does not associate in large flocks like its migratory allies, and pairs are commonly found ; a solitary bird will sometimes assume the honorary headship of a flock of teal, but they keep apart from other waterfowl as a rule. On a few occasions as many as a hundred spotted-bill have been seen in a flock, but half this number is rare, and small flocks of about a dozen are usually seen. The general habits of the spotted-bill are so exactly like those of mallard that it is no wonder the two are sometimes confused. Like its migratory cousin, the Indian bird flies, swims, walks, and dives well ; although it rises with more of a fluster and does not get up its pace so quickly, it has the advantage when wounded, as it dives very well and hides most cunningly in any available cover. Its tastes are as omnivorous as those of mallard, and it is a pest to rice-growers at times. Even its nesting-habits are similar, as it breeds on the ground in grass or other shelter, not in the elevated sites usually favoured by most of our resident 6 INDIAN SPOKTING BIKDS ducks. The eggs can be distinguished from mallard eggs by their rounder form and more buff tinge, not being greenish ; ten is the usual sitting, but the full number of ducklings are never apparently reared ; in fact, considering the ground-breeding habits of the bird, and the abundance of all sorts of vermin in India, the wonder is that it is so common at all. It is universally valued as a sporting bird, and is as good eating as mallard ; so close is the alliance that the two species when brought together in captivity interbreed without hesitation. The native names, however, keep up the distinction of species ; the spotted-bill being called Hunjur in Sindhi, and Gugral as well as Garmpai in Hindustani ; Kara is the Manipuri name, and Naddun that used in Nepaul. Ycllow-i\ib or Chinese Grey Duck. Anas zonorliyncha. This East Asiatic representative of the spotted-bill has of late years proved to occur quite commonly is Assam, and also to be found in the Shan States and Upper Burmah. Although it never has the red spots at the base of the bill so characteristic of the spotted-bill of India, this is not the chief distinction, as these spots may be absent in perfectly adult and otherwise normal spotted-bills ; I have seen one such in the London '* Zoo," which was the father of perfectly normal young when paired to a female which showed the spots. The most striking point about the yellow-nib is the fact that the wing-bar is bhie instead of green, and that the white on the inner quills never forms more than a border, and does not take up all the outer half of the feather ; moreover, the plumage is not so distinctly marked as that of the spotted-bill — although there is a very distinct whitish eyebrow — and is much darker below, the belly as well as the stern being blackish. The bill is apparently rather smaller, and is blacker, the yellow tip being smaller. The yellow-nib occurs sometimes in quite large flocks — as many as forty have been seen together in Lakhimpur — but small parties of pairs are commoner ; when thus few in numbers they GADWALL 7 associate with other surface-feeding ducks ; they are wild, like ducks in Lakhimpur generally. The eggs have been taken in Dibrugarh and the Shan States, and are like spotted-bills' eggs, but run smaller. The best known haunts of this bird are from eastern Mongolia east and through China and Japan to the Kuriles ; no doubt in the northern part of its range it is migratory, and it would appear to have a longer wing than our resident Indian spotted-biU. Gad^vall. * Chaulelasmus streperus. Mila, Hindustani. Not at all a familiar bird at home, the gadwall is, in the East, the most abundant of all the larger winter ducks, and holds much the same place in shooting in most districts as mallard in the west. The female is very like the female mallard, having a similar mottled-brown plumage, but the bar on the wing is all white and there is generally a little chestnut in front of it. The drake is a very poor creature compared to the splendid mallard drake ; his head is of a dull speckly brown and the pencilled grey of his body is dark and dull in tone, the only striking note of colour being the velvet-black stern. The white wing-bar is preceded by a patch of reddish-chocolate. Plain as his plumage is, the gadwall drake yet changes it for female dress, like the mallard, in the summer ; indeed he goes further and changes his black bill for the orange-edged one of the female, but the distinct chocolate patch on the wing remains to distinguish him. Young males have less of this. Gadwall are finer-boned and more delicately framed ducks than mallards, and are not quite so large, although they have a plump appearance ; the drake seldom weighs over two pounds, and the duck does not reach that weight, and may be as little as one ; they are generally in good condition, even when recently arrived, at which time ducks are apt to be poor after their exertions in the long flight. Although they penetrate to most parts of the Empire, they * Anas on plate. 8 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS are not so widely distributed as the pintail or even the humble shoveller, to say nothing of the teal, for they do not visit the extreme south of India nor Ceylon, to say nothing of the islands of the Bay. They come in about November and may stay on as late as May, though March is the more usual month for their departure. They are found in flocks of various sizes, and are not naturally remarkable either for shyness or its opposite, though after persecution they give trouble enough to the gunner. Like mallard they rise smartly, and their flight is more rapid, and somewhat teal-like both in style and sound. They sit rather high in the water, and swim and walk with ordinary ability, not infrequently coming ashore to feed ; among the items there sought for Hume enumerates small moths and butterflies — rather ethereal diet for a duck one would think, especially as so few birds have been actually observed eating butterflies at all. Water-insects and shell-fish are also partaken of, but the gadwall is mainly a vegetarian feeder, especially appreciating w^ild rice and paddy, even when half ripe. It is almost always an excellent bird for the table. Gadwall like a certain amount of cover in the water they frequent, but are not particular birds about their habitat ; their visits to the rice- fields are made in the mornings and evenings, and by day they retire to the broader waters to rest. They seem confined to fresh water. Although not bad divers when urged by necessity, they do not seem to dive for food; this, of course, is what one would expect, but there exists an old state- ment to the effect that the gadwall dived freely and frequently ; this was probably founded on observation of some unusually gifted individual bird. The gadwall's quack is more shrill than that of the mallard, and weaker and sharper, and more often used, according to Hume. This presumably refers to the female ; the male, which is pretty noisy towards spring, has a gruff, grunting quack, not at all like a mallard drake's note, or indeed like that of most male ducks, though the shoveller and clucking-teal have voices of somewhat the same type. Gadwall are not only thought highly of by sportsmen, but seem to be popular in pond society ; they are found, according to Hume, in the company of all sorts of other ducks, and are BKONZE-CAPPED DUCK 9 even tolerated by geese, who usually maintain an attitude oi' disagreeable exclusiveness. The gadwall drake shows off to his mate in the same attitudes as the mallard, at which time the sudden exposure of his snow-white wing-bar has a curious flashing effect against the dull iron-grej^ plumage. In captivity he is a devoted mate, vigorously defending his chosen duck, and strictly refraining from aggression towards the mates of his neighbours, a virtue not so common among ducks of the mallard group as it might be. He is, in fact, the typical, good, stead3^ reliable bird of his tribe. Outside India the gadwall has the same wide range all round the northern parts of the world as the mallard, but it is not always equally common everywhere ; it is not, for instance, abundant at- the very far end of Asia any more than in Britain. The Bengali name is Peing-hans, the Nepaulese Mail, the Sindhi Bard; while other appellations are the Hindustani Bhuar and Beykhur. Bronzc-cappcd Duck. * Eunetta falcata. Kala Sinkhar, Hindustani. I quite agree with Hume that the name of " falcated," applied generally to this bird, is not English and is misleading ; but I cannot follow him in calling it a teal, for its size is so much larger than that of any teal, and its afiinities to the gadwall so obvious, that that term is misleading also. Indeed, the female is almost exactly like the gadwall female, though easy enough to recognize if one remembers that it has the wing-bar black instead of white, the feet grey instead of orange, and the bill all black, not orange-bordered. The full-plumaged drake, with his lovely silky-crested head of green and bronze, his white neck crossed by a dark-green collar, and the bunch of long curved feathers in each wing— it is these that are "falcated" or sickle-shaped, not the bird — is at once dis- tinguishable from all other ducks. The general plumage is grey at a distance, but close at hand is seen to be made up of pencil- lings of black and white, as in most grey-looking ducks. The * Anas on plate. 10 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS black and yellow tail-coverts conceal the tail, and give the bird a very stunip-{!nded look; in fact, in life it is not so beautiful as artists make it, but looks thick-headed and top-heavy, lovely as its plumage looks in the dead specimen. It is also, in captivity at any rate, very quiet and uninteresting. The weight of a male is about a pound and a half ; his note is a whistle, while the duck has the ordinary quack, five times repeated . This bird breeds in Siberia and winters in Japan and south- eastern Asia, including India ; as Hume very accurately suggested it might be, it certainly is connnoner in India than the clucking teal, a bird of similar range, although it is certainly one of our rarities still. Hume had got no less than five specimens of it by the time he published his account in the " Game-birds " at the end of the seventies, nearly all of them in Oudh ; but it has since been found further east, as far as Upper Burma and Manipur. The Calcutta Bazaar is a good place to get it ; one of Hume's five came from there, and from 1897 onwards for the next four or five years I never missed seeing it, and in 1900 and 1901 it could fairly be called common. I have seen a dozen or more in a good season, but I should say not twenty-five per cent, were males. The male in undress, by the way, is almost exactly like the female, but has the inner quills black and grey, rather like their colouring, when long and curved, in the full plumage ; the true sickle feathers, like the Mandarin's fans, do not appear till the rest of the plumage is perfect. Fresh-caught birds are very wild, and the species is said to be a strong flyer. Pintail. Dafila acuta. Sink-par, Hindustani. The elegant clipper-built pintail is at once conspicuous by his racing lines among all our ducks, his long neck and long sharp tail making him conspicuous either in the air or on the water. His colouring is chiefly remarkable for the large amount of white, this reaching below from the liver-brown head to the black stern ; the upper-parts are of the finely lined grey so common among the males of the duck tribe. 1^ '^■" <: .# \ ( V y" PINTAIL 11 The female, having a much shorter, though still pointed, tail, and the usual mottled brown plumage of typical ducks of her sex, is less easily recognizable, but she is recognizable on close inspection by having the tail feathers marked with light and dark cross-bars, instead of light-edged and dark-centred as usual, and by having either no wing-bar at all or one, like the drake's, of the unusual tint of bronze. The drake in undress has at first a very feminine aspect, but his tail, though short, is still darker than the female's, and his pkimage is rather cross-barred than mottled with curved markings. Pintail weigh about a couple of pounds in the case of drakes, ducks being about half a pound less. They are among the most valued sporting birds in India, coming in vast numbers every winter, and spreading all over the Empire ; the flocks are seldom under twenty in number, and generally contain two or three times that number of birds, while hundreds and even thousands may be found together. Although so sociable, in some cases flocks ma}' be found consisting of drakes alone. They like large pieces of open water with plenty of surface weed for their day-time rest, and keep a good look-out, being naturally wary ; they do not move till well on in the evening, and then go out to feed in all sorts of watery places, returning at daybreak to their resting-places. They fly, as might be expected, from their slender shape, with very great speed, and are considered to be the swiftest of all the tribe. The sound of a flock passing is described by Hume as a " low, soft, hissing swish," which is quite unmistakable. On the other hand, their swimming and walking powers are but ordinary, and they dive badly. Their long necks are of great service to them in feeding on the bottom with the stern up, and also in reaching up to pull down paddy-ears, for they do not disdain vegetable food, although chiefly animal feeders, especially eating shell-fish; this, however, does not give them an unpleasant flavour, and, as a matter of fact, few ducks are so uniformly good. In general disposition they are placid, rather characterless birds ; they are not even noisy, the drake's note being singularly soft and subdued, and very hard to describe ; the duck's quack is harsher than that of the mallard or spotted-bill, but she very 12 INDIAN SPOETING BIKDS seldom utters it. The drake when courting shows off Hke the mallard, but is rarely seen to do so. In fact, though as a sporting bird the pintail is unrivalled among the ducks, and has few equals among other groups, from the naturalist's point of view he is disappointing, in spite of his elegant and refined appearance. Pintail, like mallard, are found all round the world, but only breed in high northern latitudes as a rule ; wild-bred hybrids with the mallard sometimes occur, but such have never turned up in India. These much resemble rather delicately shaped and tinted mallard, but have the tail only curved, not curled, the head less richly glossed, and the breast light-fawn, not chocolate. This hybrid, by the way, is quite fertile in captivity. In Bengal pintail are called Dighans or Sho-lon-cho ; in Sind Koharali or Drighush ; Digunch in Nepal and Laitunga in Manipur, while another Hindustani name besides Sink-par is Sank. Shoveller. Spatula chjpeata. Ticlari, Hindustani. The long and broad-tipped bill of the shoveller, very like a shoeing-horn in shape, and provided along the edges with a comb of horny sifting-plates, is so characteristic that anyone could pick the owner out in the dark by merely feeling its beak. It is therefore unnecessary to go into any details about the plumage of the mottled-brown female, but in justice to the drake it must be mentioned that he combines the mallard's green head with the pintail's white breast, and wings bluer than the garganey's with flanks and belly redder than the Brahminy. He is, in fact, a very flashy-looking bird when in colour, but in undress plumage he is very like his brown mate, but is dis- tinguishable by having the blue wing-patch. Even his bill at this time changes colour, from jet-black to the olive and orange of the female. He keeps his undress a long time, not coming into colour as a rule before Christmas. Take away his bill and wings, and the shoveller is a rather small duck, only weighing about a pound and a half with those appendages included. SHOVELLER 13 He is also of rather small account from a sporting point of view, for though one of our very commonest winter ducks, spreading all over the Empire except the islands in the Bay of Bengal, he is not numerous anywhere, going in small flocks or pairs, which somewhat affect the company of other species. His tastes, more- over, are low ; although to be found here and there in any sort of watery environment, what he really likes is muddy shallows and weedy ponds, and even dirty little village tanks, where stores of organic matter appeal to his palate. He is exquisitely provided for extracting nutriment suspended in water by his wonderful bill, which, as Darwin long ago pointed out, is like the mouth of a whalebone whale in miniature ; the principle is the same in all ducks' bills, but in the shoveller it is carried to perfection, and so this bird seldom feeds by exploring the bottom or foraging on shore ; but paddles slowly about, often turning in a circle, and bibbles assiduously, finding food where no other duck could obtain it. Any sort of food, vegetable or animal, passes muster with him, but of course he is no dirtier a feeder than other ducks when found in a clean environment ; he simply takes what comes first. But in any case he has a bad name as food, though I must say I think this may perhaps be exaggerated by a natural prejudice against a bird often seen in dirt}* places. This duck is not a wary bird, but, in spite of its lazy and slow movements on land and water, its small feet and short legs not being suited for rapid running and swimming, it is active enough on the wing, and will even oblige a flock of teal with a lead. It cannot dive much, so is easily captured if winged. The note of the male is qimck quucTx, but one does not often hear it except when he is courting ; he is dull and stolid then as at most other times, simply moving his head up and dow'n in a daft sort of way. The female seems to have the ordinary quack. Shovellers come into India rather late, about the beginning of November, and sometimes spend all the winter in Kashmir; they are also late in leaving, staying in some places as late as April or even May. One has been met with with a brood in Ceylon in March, but such breeding in our limits is doubtless quite exceptional. In its breeding haunts, which include the north temperate portion of the whole world, it nests on the 14 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS ground and lays nine eggs or so of a yellowish-grey colour. The young are very small, hardly bigger than young teal, and their beaks are not broadened at first, though rather long, but they start surface-bibbling and revolving round and round at once. The shoveller is well off for names; in Nepal even the sexes are distinguished, the male as Dhobaha, and the female as KJiikeria, Sankhar ; in Sind the name is Allpat and in Bengal Pantamuhki, while, in addition to that given at the head of this article, there are other Hindustani titles — Piinana, Tokarwalah, and Ghirali. Common or Grccn-wingcd Teal. * Nettium crecca. Lohya Kerra, Hindustani. The common teal, the smallest, and one of the handsomest and most sporting of our migratory ducks, can be at once distin- guished from all the rest by the brilliant patch of metallic emerald green on the wing, whence the name green-winged teal often applied to it to distinguish it from the blue-winged teal or garganey. Except for this wing-mark, there is nothing dis- tinctive about the mottled-brown plumage of the female, but the drake is a most handsomely coloured little bird, with his chestnut head widely banded with green, the cream and black stripes on his pencilled-grey back, and the thrush-like spotting on the breast. This teal, though with a proportionately long narrow bill, is a thick-set, plump little bird, weighing from 7' 7 to 12 •ounces, with no noticeable distinction in this respect between the sexes. In the drake's summer undress, which he loses later than is usually the case, so that specimens bearing more or less of it are usually seen even in their winter quarters here for a month or two, he is generally like the female, but has the breast plain brown without speckling, and the markings of the body less well defined. The drake's note is a whistle, the duck's is a tiny quack ; he shows off to her like the mallard, but with a quick, jerky action. Common teal are just as familiar in the East during the cold * Querqioedula on plate. l§. .,y«^' "'"^^tK. COMMON OR GREEN-WINGED TEAL 15 weather as they are in Europe, in fact more so ; they are some of the commonest of our migratory clucks, and are certainly the most widely diffused, being found practically all over the Empire, even penetrating to the Andamans and Nicobars, though ap- parently not to Southern Tenasserim. They come in early, many arriving in September, and some occasionally even before August is out ; but October is, as usual with our migrants, the month for the main body to arrive in. In the north-west, where they are most abundant, flocks of thousands may be seen, but two or three dozen is a usual figure for the flocks commonly met with, and even single birds as well as pairs often turn up. Any sort of water may hold them, as they are content with a very small area, but they like plenty of cover, and lie fairly close, so that they afford frequent shots. They swim and walk fairly well, but do not come on land much for a surface-feeding duck ; their diving powers are nothing extraordinary, but they are adepts at taking cover under water when wounded, so that where there are plenty of weeds, &c., they are hard enough to get hold of. Their flight is exceedingly fast, but like most small creatures, furred as well as feathered, they are probably credited with more speed than they actually possess, owing to the quickness of their movements, which has a deceptive effect ; at any rate, the shoveller and even the spot-bill, can give a flock of teal a lead. Their really strong point on the wing is their power of wheeling suddenly, which often proves too much both for the peregrine falcon and for the human enemy with his gun. Their feeding- time is mostly at night, and the food itself vegetable for the most part, though small live things are not despised ; but Hume argues reasonably that they must be mainly vegetarians, because in the " tealeries " so common in upper India in his day the birds throve on paddy and lucerne only, and kept their condition, if well looked after, all through the hot weather and rains, when they were much valued as food when butcher's meat was unattainable. Hume indeed considered that a well-kept captive teal was even better than a wild one, and the wild bird is universally praised for its excellent qualities ; I do not know any bird I like better myself, as there is something about it one does 16 INDIAN SPOKTING BIRDS not get tired of. In disposition the teal is very sociable and fond of its mate ; it is also excessively " cheeky " with larger ducks ; I have several times seen a full-winged one which had been bred at the London " Zoo " and used to return to visit its pinioned comrades, in the thick of a fight with an Andaman teal or Chilian wigeon {Mareca sibilatrix), both of them far bigger and redoubtable fighters in their way, and I once saw another in St. James's Park chasing a female mallard, to her great indignation and the surprise of her mate. These teal may now and then be found in India in any month of the year, but there is no reason to believe they breed there. They are found all across the Old World. Some Hindustani names are Chota Murgliahi, Piitari, and Soiichnruka ; Baigilagairi is used in Nepal and Kardo in Sind ; while the Canarese name is Sorlai-haki, the Tamil Killoioai, and the Bengali ones Naroib or Tulsia-higri. Gargaiicy. Querquedula circia. Chaitwa, Hindustani. The garganey is often called the blue-wing teal to distinguish it from the common or green-winged teal ; there is, as a matter of fact, no actual bright blue about the wing, but the inner half, in the drake, is of a delicate French grey, very noticeable in flight, and his white eyebrows are also striking points ; while on the water the mottled brown of the fore- and hind-parts, con- trasting with the grey of the sides, are characteristic. Except for the wing-bar, which is of a rather subdued green, there is no bright colour about this little duck, but nevertheless he is a very striking bird. The female, in her plain mottled-brown plumage, is at first sight just like the female common teal, but has not the brilliant green wing-patch. The male in undress can be distinguished by the lavender and green on the wings ; on the water with wings folded he is just like his mate, and he bears his undress plumage longer than any other duck, not coming into male colour till the spring. The garganey is a slightly bigger bird than the common teal, weighing generally about thirteen ounces and even reaching < —I ID Q LU Z3 a: cr GARGANEY 17 a pound. It has a rather shorter beak, and is generally more shapely and fashioned like a miniature mallard. No duck visits us in greater numbers than this ; in fact, i what one saw in the Calcutta Bazaar in the nineties was any criterion, this bird is in winter the most numerous duck in the country, surpassing even the whistler and the common teal. It habitually associates in flocks of hundreds and even thousands ; parties of less than a score are uncommon. The large flocks are mostly to be found in the north-west, though the bird is distributed over India and Burma generally, and is well known in Ceylon. It has less predilection for small and weed-grown bits of water than the common teal, and is quite at home on wide lakes and rivers, where by choice it spends the day. It feeds mostly at night, and in some localities destroys the paddy by the acre, being chiefly a vegetable feeder, though of course, like ducks in general, it does not despise any animal food it comes across. In " tealeries " also, it is found to thrive on the same vegetable regime as the common teal ; it is never, however, quite so good a bird on the table. In disposition and style of flight it is decidedly different ; it is, as a general rule, nmch wilder, and flies much straighter and to a greater distance when alarmed ; the flocks pack very close, and as they pass overhead the sound made by their wings — a pattering swish, Mr. E. C. S. Baker calls it — is very character- istic. They swim and walk as well as common teal, and dive much better ; Hume sums the matter up by saying they are more vigorous and less agile birds. Garganey are not at all noisy birds ; the duck quacks, but the note of the drake is as different from that of the common teal as it can well be ; it is a sort of gurgling rattle, most unmistakable when once heard. It is constantly uttered during courtship, when the bird does not rear up like the common teal, but merely moves his head up and down like the shoveller; in fact, to this bird all the teal with blue or bluish patches on the wings seem to be related. Judging from the note, it is no doubt this bird, not the common teal, that was the original Querquedula of the ancients — the Spanish name Gerceta comes very near this Latin one. Although not nearly so common in Europe as in the East, the garganey 2 18 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS is well known there ; it breeds in small numbers in England, where, unlike all our other ducks, it is a summer migrant only. It seems never to go into cold waters, though able to bear our English winters in captivity quite well. All across Asia it is to be found in summer, and is a very conmion species in winter from Egypt on the west to China on the east, and even reaches Java. It comes in nearly or quite as early as the common teal in India ; in fact, in the north-west generally earlier, and in two instances has been found breeding in India and Burma, for though, as a rule, only a visitor, it may be found at any time during the year exceptionally. The breeding records, however — one from Oudh and one from Moulmein — only concern the capture of more or less fledged young, and an actual nest has not been found. The nest in the countries where the bird breeds is made on the ground among grass or other cover near small pieces of water, and is provided with a rather scanty lining of down. About eight is the usual number of eggs laid ; they are yellowish- white, like those of the common teal, and of the same size. The ducklings also are much like miniature young mallard. The Bengali names of the garganey are Gangroih and Girria ; in Hindustani it is called Kliaira and Patari as well as Chaitioa. Clucking Teal. * Nettuim formosum. The head alone is quite enough to identify the drake of this rare species ; the throat and crown are black, the face buff, with a black line down from each eye as if the bird had been crying tears of ink, and a crescent of glittering green curving round at the back. There is a vertical white bar on each side of the pinkish, black-spotted breast, separating it from the pencilled blue-grey flanks, and the shoulders are decked with long hackles streaked with black, buff, and chestnut. * Querquedula c^locitans on plate. <; O < Q uJ cr lj CLUCKIiNG TEAL 19 The female is much hke that of the common teal, but is larger, with much shorter bill in proportion, and a very distinct white patch at its base; moreover, the wing bar is mostly black and white, with only a narrow streak of green, and this running vertically parallel with the white border, not longitudinally. The male in undress differs from her in having the lower back plain brown as in the full plumage, not mottled. For some time after he loses this eclipse dress in the autumn his beautiful head markings are much obscured by brown edgings to the feathers, although the strange pattern is quite recognizable. This teal is not only larger than the common and garganey teals, longer-tailed and shorter-billed, but stands much higher on the legs, and runs very actively. The loud clucking note of the drake, which sounds like mok-mok, is most characteristic, and the bird can never hold his tongue for long. lie displays in a curious way, generally on land so far as I have seen ; first raising his head and erecting the plumage on it, so that it seems much larger, and then jerking it back on to his shoulders, clucking vigorously the while. The clucking teal is an eastern Asiatic bird, for though breeding freely in Siberia and sometimes occurring to the westward in Europe, its chief winter haunts are Japan and China, where it must be extremely abundant, judging from the thousands of live birds that have lately been exported to Europe and even Australia of late years. At the time of writing it is hardly dearer in England than common teal, and the dealers have scores at a time. Less than a dozen specimens have been taken in India, and these chiefly of recent years ; but one was got in the Calcutta Market in 1844. I also got the first female recorded there. No doubt this sex has been often overlooked, for all the other records seem to be of males, and these have been got as far apart as Gujarat and Dibrugarh . 20 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS Marbled Teal. * Marmaronetta angustirostris. The Marbled Teal is decidedly large for a teal, weighing about a pound. Its peculiar colouring, which is the same in both sexes, is very distinctive, though also very unpretentious. It is a mottling of drab and cream-colour, the only approach to distinct and easily apprehensible colour-points being an ill- defined dark eye-patch and pale grey edgings to the wings. It has a very faded and washed-out appearance, but its dark slaty bill and feet contrast strikingly with the pallid plumage. The pale or cinnamon variety of the garganey which some- times occurs has been mistaken for this bird, and so has the female mandarin duck ; but neither has the dark eye-patch, and the mandarin is not mottled on the back, while the garganey is far smaller than the present species, and when albinistic, generally has the beak and feet flesh-coloured. The marbled teal, as a rule, is only found in winter, and chiefly in the North-West Provinces, extending as far as Oudh ; it has even strayed to the neighbourhood of Calcutta, but it is only really common in Sind, where it may fairly be called abundant. It is among the surface-feeders what the white-eyed pochard is among the divers, a bird of coot-like proclivities, preferring water with plenty of rushes growing in it, and getting up, not in flocks but independently like quail ; when on the wing also, they fly low and not very fast. They will dive and hide under water with the bill out when wounded, and seem seldom to come ashore, though they walk w^ell, as might be expected from their light build, which they share with the Andaman and clucking teals, both good pedestrians. When courting the drake jerks back his head on to his shoulders ; his note is the usual whistle of teal drakes, while the duck quacks. It feeds pretty equally on both vegetable and animal food, and again like the white-eye, is not a good table bird. Some eggs found in a nest under a babul bush in a salt marsh * Querquedula on plate. CO \— CO o CO o < < _l ZJ Q LU cr LU ANDAMAN TEAL 21 on the Mekran coast are supposed to be those of this bird ; they were taken on June 19. The certainly known eggs are cream colour, as were these. The ordinary range of the species is from the Canaries and Cape Verd Islands, along the Mediter- ranean region, and through Western Asia, so that in range, as well as colour, it rather recalls a sand-crrouse. Andaman Teal. * Nettitim albigulare. The Andaman teal, although not distinguished by Hume from the Australasian oceanic teal (the real gihherifrons) has, with the exception of a single specimen recorded from Burma, no doubt a windblown straggler, been only found in the Andaman Islands. It would, however, be easily recognizable among our mainland species, owing to its very dark brown colour, but little relieved by the pale edgings to the feathers, and the conspicuous white patch on the wing in front of the wing-bar, which marking is black, green, and white, the two last colours forming narrow central and bordering streaks respectively. Except in yearling birds, there is a white ring round the eye, and some older specimens have the feathers at the base of the beak, or even the whole sides of the head and back of the neck white. This amount of white colour takes some years to develop, and I have only seen one bird wild killed showing it, but it has appeared sooner or later in all captives I have watched, though those bred in captivity are without even any white eye-ring at first; just like young wild birds in fact. It remains to be seen whether this marking is really becoming common among the wild stock from some cause we are unaw^are of, or whether only captive birds get a chance to live long enough to become white-headed, for that is what the tame ones ultimately become, the brown being limited to the centre of the crown. The Andaman teal resembles the small whistler in many of its ways, being active on the water, a regular percher and a hght * Mareca gihherifrons on plate. 22 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS liyer, and an inveterate fighter; this it has to be if it must live along w^ith the Andaman strain of the small whistler, which, judging from a pair we had in the Calcutta Zoo, is even more peppery in character than the mainland birds, from which these were distinguishable by their smaller size and richer colour. Like the whistling teal, also, it breeds either in trees or on the ground, the eggs being cream-coloured ; the tree site for the nest is the common one, and it is placed in a hole. It is, however, a true teal in general characters, though large for such a bird, weighing about a pound ; also, though the sexes are alike in colour, it has the usual sex difference m note found in the teal, the drake whistling and the duck quacking. It is a very active runner, and also flies sharply though noiselessly ; during the day it perches most of the time, feeding at night in ponds or in the morning and evening in paddy fields, but is also found in salt water. Wigcon. Mareca penelope. Peasan, Hindustani. There seems to be a prevailing idea among people whose knowledge of ducks is limited that any sort smaller than a mallard and yet obviously too big to be a teal, must be a wigeon ; but the real bird, which has only two near allies, both American, is quite unmistakable, owing to its small, inch-long, narrow bill, which is blue-grey with a black tip, and its unusually long and narrow wings ; the belly is also conspicuously white in both sexes. In weight it is indeed intermediate between the full-sized ducks and the teal, weighing about a pound and a half. The wigeon drake is very handsome, his chestnut head with yellow forehead contrasting well with his salmon breast and grey back ; a large white patch on the wing is very conspicuous in ilight. The female's brown plumage is less conspicuously mottled than that of other brown ducks of her sex, but the points above given will distinguish her easily. The male, in undress is similar, but much redder brown as a rule ; his white and green marking on the wing will distinguish him in this stage. The sexes differ strikingly in voice as well as in plumage, for the drake utters what Hume well calls "a whistled cry," pre- I -^- c/) O lU -I" CO o i;i) imjck liavirif^ 11 vvfll-kiiovvri vii.liic hh oriiiuiiciitii,! hiids; \>h\, mow, I ii.m told \>y riicii\\(\ woiilrj prol^iihly produce; not a Hin^'lc. Hpccimcii. YcL not iiiatiy huvc vi:;i<;\]i;i\ I'liiropn aliv<: Ho Uir, .'uid notM*, ho far !i,h I know, hav(! bred iii (■■,i\)\,\w\ly aiiywlicrc!. It in jiikI, poHHihIc, of cours*;, tliii.l, llu; l>irds have not, Ixutn ext(JiiHiv(!ly caii^hl, or hIioI out,, bill siiii|)ly " hliycd," as our hlrd- catolutrH Hay, hy ^''>'> pfrsist'-iil, ncltiri^', as Uu-y Ix^ar ho lii^'li a value;. Ah I HiiJd in niy hook on Indian mellow two-Hyll;i,hled e;ill, whieh I have tried to n;fidei' ii,s "wu^h-idi," The vvinc-whistle is very eh;i,r;i-ete,ristie, if th*; (licht of the hird in ;i.n aviii.ry is ;i,ny ^iiid*' ; it is c.lc/.ir yet soft, and tfu; flieht is (;;i,sy, ;i,nd in th<' open rii,[)id and stronf^. Of th(! colora- U()\) of the down of th<; .\oimc ;uid of the drake's disf)l;i,y nothinr^ is k'liown ;i,f)p;Mently. 26 INDIAN SPOKTING BIEDS The bird is thoroughly well known to the natives. Besides the Hindustani names of Golahi sir or Golah-lal-sir, it has the BengaH one of SaJcnal, and that of Dinnrar or Umar in Nepal and Tirhoot. Common Pochard. * Nyroca ferina. Burar-nar, Hindustani. Being the original and typical pochard, this bird, as Hume says, really does not need a qualifying epithet; "red-headed," that commonly applied to it, is no more distinctive than the Hindustani Lal-sir, since both this and the red-crested species have red heads. Pochard, by the way, means in French a drunkard, and I rather fancy it was applied to this species on account of the red eyes, which are a most noticeable feature in the drake. We all know the text, " Who hath red eyes and carbuncles? Those that follow after strong drink." It is true that authors persist in saying the e3^es are yellow, but this is really rarely the case in the living male, though the eye may turn yellow after death, or even temporarily during extreme fright, as when the bird is handled. In females, as far as I have seen, the eyes are almost always brown, but I once saw a red-eyed specimen. This pochard is a squat, thick-set, big-headed duck, with a very short tail, which is not noticeable on the water, as the bird swims very low, especially astern. The male's pale grey body, contrasting with the black breast and chestnut head (which at a distance also looks dark), is very characteristic both on the water and on the wing, especially as the latter has no conspicuous mark, being grey like the body. The female is also grey, but dull and muddy, with the head and breast a decided brown. The absence of any white on the wing will distinguish her from all the other diving ducks except the rare stiff-tail, which is sufficiently well characterized by its peculiar beak and tail, to say nothing of other parts. Males in undress have the breast grey instead of black. This is a heavy duck for its size, weighing about a couple of pounds or little under, and showing but little sex difference in weight. *Fuligula on plate. COMMON POCHARD 27 The pochard is as well known a bird in India as in Europe, but only as a winter visitor, ranging throughout the north to Manipur and even Burma, but not going further south than Bellary. It is very common in the northern part of its ranges but comes in rather late, not till the end of October even in the north as a rule. It goes in flocks numbering at times thousands, but of course commonly in dozens, according to the nature of the accommoda- tion, the big flocks being found on the big sheets of water. It is fond of open water, and may even be found on the sea coast. A few feet of depth at least is in its favour, for it is one of the finest of divers among our Indian ducks, and gets nearly all of its food in this way, though now and then small flocks may be found surface-bibbling in the shallows, and in rare cases feeding on land. Their gait in this case, as Hume says, is certainly very awkward, but in practice they walk rather better if put to it than most diving ducks, in spite of the size of their feet and eminent adaptation for swimming and diving. They rise with considerable trouble and exertion, as one would expect from their small wings, and blunder into standing nets in numbers. Their wing-rustle is said to be characteristic, as would be expected from the quick action necessary in flight to such a full- bodied small-winged duck as this is. The vocal note is the sound like kurr, kiurr, which takes the place of a quack in several diving ducks ; the male has a separate note during courtship of a wheezing character. This pochard being a near relative of the far-famed American canvas-back, it is not surprising to find it a good table bird ; in fact, it is the best of the Indian diving ducks, and the only one to be relied on for quality among these, except on the sea-coast. Its food is vegetable by preference, consisting of water plants, rice, &c., with an addition of water snails, which are eaten by practically all ducks, and other animal hors d'oemire. This pochard is of a naturally tame disposition, but gets wary enough when persecuted at all ; and winged birds will give plenty of trouble to bring to book, though Hume considered them less elusive than the white-eye. However, as he says, they are generally shot in more open water. As far as actual 28 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS diving goes I should say the common pochard is really the better performer of the two. Although a very similar species inhabits North America besides the canvas-back, this really has a yellow eye and seems to me to be just separable after having seen live specimens ; so the pochard may be reckoned as purely an Old- World bird. The female is distinguished as Dunbird by English sportsmen, but the same native names seem to apply to both sexes. Gheun is used in Nepal and Tliordingnam in Manipur. Whitc-cycd Pochard. * Nijroca jerntginea. KarcJiiya, Hindustani. The little bright-chocolate white-eyed pochard is far the commonest of Indian diving-ducks, and in winter may be looked for anywhere south to Katnagiri and east to Manipur, but it is more a northern than a southern bird with us, like all the pochards. The white eye is only a masculine character, but develops early, the female's ej^es being dark grey and not conspicuous. Moreover she is not nearly so richly coloured as the drake, being especially clouded with blackish about the head. The coloration, however, is of the same general type, both giving the impression of a small dark duck, showing no white except on the stern when on the water, but displaying a conspicuous amount on the wings when in flight. Young birds are not rich dark brown, but dirty light brown, much like the colour of brown paper, certainly not the gingery orange shown in the background figure in Hume's plate. In all, the upper parts are darker and devoid of red tinge. This is not only the commonest but the smallest of Indian pochards, seldom weighing much over a pound and a quarter, hixcept in Kashmir, it is only a cold- weather bird, coming in late in October. When in residence, they prefer before every- thing water w^ell covered with weeds, or with plenty of rushes ; just those places, in fact, which other diving-duck tend to steer Aythya vyrora on plate. o < o o WHITE-EYED POCHARD 29 clear of. But this species likes cover, and also packs much less than ducks generally, half a dozen being a far more likely party to come across than half a hundred, exiremely numerous as the birds are in certain districts. They also often go in pairs or even singly, and in any case have a habit of getting up independently like quail, which of course endears them to the sportsman on account of the number of chances he gets. The flight also resembles a quail's in being low as a rule, and often terminating in a sudden stop ; it is fairly fast, though the bird starts awkwardly, rather like a coot, which in some ways it resembles in habits, just as the goosander does a cormorant ; so distinct are the ways of ducks in reality, though people seem to look on them as monotonous uninteresting birds. Winged birds are notorious for their skill in taking cover and disappearing altogether. It must not be supposed, however, that the white-eye is confined to weedy water ; it is a most versatile bird, and will put up with any sort of aquatic habitat at a pinch, so long as it is actually in water, for it does not seem to feed on land. Thus it may be found down on the sea-coast or up in the pools of the hill-streams, on lakes without cover or even on rivers, and, unlike all other diving-ducks, in little stagnant pools. On land, although not quick or elegant in its movements, this species seems less out of its element than other pochards, as I have known it live well in an aviary in the Calcutta Zoo with only a very small tank ; but then I have also known even smews do this at home, so perhaps it is only an evidence of constitutional toughness. In feeding, this duck is particularly omnivorous, vegetable and animal food being much alike to it ; it is thought but httle of for the table, as a rule, but I could never see why it was so much abused ; but then I am fond of ducks generally, as well for eating as for observation. The note is a kurr in the female, a weak, faint quack in the drake, which jerks back his neck in a curve when courting her. The white-eye breeds in Kashmir only in our limits, nesting late as a rule, for when it was the custom to take wild ducks' eggs for sale, this poaching traffic did not begin till June. About half a dozen eggs make a sitting, though more occur; they are drab or some shade of buff or pale brown. The nest is made of 30 INDIAN SPOKTING BIRDS vegetable matter chiefly, there being but a small amount of down lining supplied by the bird in many cases. It is sometimes actually in the water, supported on the weeds, and in any case very near the edge. Outside India the white-eye breeds through Western Asia to the Mediterranean region ; it is really a southern species, rarely going north of Central Europe ; in Britain, it is the rare "ferruginous duck" of the bird-books. India seems its chief wmter resort, as in the case of the splendid red-crested pochard. The Bengali name is Lal-higri or Bhuti-hans ; Malac is used in Nepal Province and Burtiu in Sind. Bacr's White-eyed Pochard. Nyroca baeri. Boro Lalhigj-a, Cachari. That Baer's white-eye is a very uncertain visitor to our Empire, is proved by the fact that Hume and his numerous collectors and correspondents never got to know about it. Yet the adult is a most unmistakable bird, the green-glossed black head contrasting so strikingly with the chocolate breast which it shares with the common white-eyed pochard. In fact, except for the head, the two are much alike, but an important difference is that the white on the belly of the Baer's white-eye runs irregularly up on to the flanks, thus showing above the water- line, and furnishing a means of distinction, even at a distance, from the common white-eye. The sexes are more alike in this species than in the ordinary white-eye, but the female is distinguishable by the presence of a rusty area between the eye and the beak, con- trasting with the green of the rest of the head. This, like the plumage generally, is less rich than in the drake, but the difference is very slight, and it is quite a mistake to describe the female's head as simply black. When a bird shows no green gloss it is generally small, and probably indicates a cross with the commoner species, which is very noticeably the smaller of the two. So much is this the case, that it is one of the distinctions of BAER'S WHITE-EYED POCHARD 31 the young birds, which in this species are dull light-brown as in the last, but have a rusty tinge about the face and a distinct black shade on the crown which is not found in young common white-eyes. The difference is especially marked in the bill, which is about half an inch longer in the eastern than in the western white-eye ; in fact, the whole bird is longer and less dumpy, though the family resemblance is most obvious and close. Even in its ordinary wintering-places in China, the eastern white-eye seems somewhat irregular in its occurrence, and little is really known about it except that it breeds in East Siberia. There has certainly been a considerable winter westward move- ment of the species of late years, beginning apparently with the year 1896, when it turned up in the Calcutta Market, by no means an unexploited locality. The rush appeared to culminate in the next winter, the birds then becoming gradually scarcer; in 1902, up to December when I left India for good, there had been none in ; but about February was about the likeliest date for them ; in 189(3-7 they were as conmion as ordinary white-eyes. Mr. Baker also got them, after the occurrence of the species here was made known, from Cachar, Sylhet, near Bhamo, and the Shan States, which is what one would expect, although the birds do not seem to have been numerous, as they apparently were in Bengal ; he only got three from Burma, for instance. Although not recorded on the Continent, the birds even pushed as far as England, where two have been shot of late years, one at Tring, and one while this book was being written, in Notts. The only observation worth recording here I was able to make on these birds, of which I kept several alive in the museum tank, and got others for the Calcutta and London Zoos, was that when kept full-winged in an aviary they rose as easily as surface-feeding ducks ; this may mean they escape netting much more than other pochards. I may also mention that the note and courting gestures of the species are, as one would expect, like those of its common ally, and it is certainly no better to eat, according to those who have tried it. As con- firming the view of those who attribute the abnormal lingering of pairs of migratory birds in India to some injury incapacitating 32 INDIAN SPOETING BIBDS one partner from migration to the northern breeding-grounds, I may, in conclusion, cite the case of an unpinioned male of this species I had, which remained in the museum tank for at least two summers along with a pinioned pair ; indeed, I never even saw him fly, and ultimately I caught him when he was in moult and gave him away to go to Europe along with the pinioned birds. Of course he and not the pinioned drake might have been mated to the female, but even if he were not, he evidently did not like to leave his companions, and his constancy rather tends to show that flocks of the species never passed over daring his stay with me, or he might have been tempted to do so. Tufted Pochard. * Nyroca fuligida. Ahlac, Hindustani. The tufted pochard drake is conspicuous among all our water-fowl, not so much by his long thin drooping crest, which is only noticeable close at hand, but by his striking magpie coloration, black in front and behind and white in the middle ; the back, indeed, is black as well as the breast, but the broad white flanks are what catch the eye as the bird swims. The female is dark brown with a much shorter crest, and seldom shows any white above the water-line. On the wing both sexes show as small dark ducks with nearly white wings, and at a distance may be easily confused with the white-eye, but differ somewhat m habits and choice of location. Young birds of the year are dull light brown, very like young white-eyes, but may be distinguished, if the crest and the characteristic yellow eye of this species has not developed, by the much shorter and broader beak, especially wide at the tip. Although a small duck, the tufted is bigger than the white- eyed pochard, being broader built and averaging about half a pound heavier. In spite of this, however, it is the most active flyer of all the common pochards, getting sharply off the water * Fuligida cristata on plate. \— <£. i— cc EED-CRESTED POCHARD 35 The scaup is a bird of the high north, but in winter is found as far south as the Mediterranean, South China, and Guatemala, for it inhabits America as well as the Old World. It is not difficult to get near, but is extraordinarily tenacious of life and a most energetic and rapid diver when wounded ; while when at length captured it is not good eating, so that its rarity here is not a matter for much regret. Red-crcstcd Pochard. * Netta rufiria. Lal-chonch, Hindustani . The big red bill and bushy chestnut head of the big red- crested pochard distinguish him from afar, to say nothing of his strongly contrasted body-colouring, black at breast and stern, and brown and white amidships ; the black runs all down the under-surface, though on the water only the white flanks are seen. The female, although with no bright colours, being merely brown, with cheeks and under-parts dirty white, is easily distinguished from other ducks ; she also has a bushy-looking head and in particular a black bill tipped with red. The drake in undress plumage hardly differs from her but in having more red on the bill — in fact, in some specimens this remains as completely red as in the full plumage. The red-crested pochard is the biggest of all our diving ducks except the goosander, drakes weighing about two and a half pounds and ducks only about half a pound less. The flight is less heavy and whizzing than that of pochards in genera], but the wing-rustle is usually distinguishable from that of the common pochard, being louder and harsher. These birds are very abundant in many places in India, flocks even of thousands occurring, which look, from the bright-coloured heads of the drakes, like beds of aquatic flowers ; they come in in October and November and leave about April. The big flocks tend to split up into parties of a few dozen where there are not very large pieces of water, but stray specimens may turn up * Branta on plate. 36 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS almost anywhere. What the}' chiefly like, however, are expanses of deep, still water with plenty of weed on the bottom, and so they are chiefly birds of broad sluggish reaches of rivers and extensive lakes and jheels. They are found all through Northern India east to Manipur, but do not commonly go south of the Central Provinces, though said even to reach Ceylon occasionally. They swim fast and dive well, getting much, if not most of their food in this way daring their stay in India ; but they also frequently feed in shallow water by turning end up, and generally behaving like surface-feeding ducks, even coming ashore to feed ; and it is a curious thing that in captivity, even on a large piece of . water, they very seldom dive, although other pochards constantly do so. They are less clumsy in shape than these, and do not walk so awkwardly. The food is very varied, but more vegetable than animal ; water-plants, grass, insects, frogs, and even small fish, all enter into their menu. They are generally fat, and are sometimes as good as any duck, but may also have what Hume calls a " rank, marshy, froggy flavour." They are among the best sporting l)irds in India, being wary and shy ; in fact, Hume considered them the hardest to get at of all the ordinary quarry of the wild fowler in the East. They are generally day-feeders, but also feed at night, and are commonly siiot at flighting time, though then only in small parties. The flocks usually contain both sexes, but occasionally males only may constitute a flock. The sexes differ considerably in their voice, the drake's note being a whistle — not the same, however, as the wigeon drake's ; the duck's call is the usual Jiurr of the females of the pochard group. The great distinctness of the sexes causes this bird to be one of the few with different sex-names in the vernaculars ; in Bengali the male is Hero, the female Chobra-lians ; in Nepalese the words are different, Dumar for the male and Samoa for the female ; the Sindhi liatoha applies to both sexes. The red-crested pochard is nowhere a duck of the high north; it breeds as near us as Turkestan, and extends west through Southern Europe to North Africa. India seems to be its chief winter resort. In Britain it is rare as a wild bird, but well < Z3 cc < < cc en M^ STIFF-TAILED DUCK 37 known in captivit}', in which state it often breeds. The nest is on the ground in rushes, and the eggs, when fresh, are remark- able for the brightness of their green colour, about eight being the usual clutch. Stiff-tailed Duck. Erismatura leucocephala. The remarkable appearance of this duck always attracts attention ; it sits very low in the water, often erecting its long thin wiry tail, which balances as it were the big head with its remarkably broad bill, much bulged at the root. When approached it dives in preference to flying, and if it does rise does not usually travel far ; the wings are extraordinarily small. The plumage is peculiar but not striking, being of a pencilled brown, sometimes much tinged with chestnut. The head is marked with a lateral streak of white on a blackish ground, and the throat is white, the bill and feet slate-colour. At least, that is the plumage of most of the specimens which turn up in India ; the adult male is a really striking-looking bird, with a sky-blue bill and snow-white head and throat, set off by a black crown and neck. Although extremely broad, this bird is hardly longer than a common teal, and its wings are considerably smaller than in that species ; yet the weight must be twice as much, and it is a wonder how the bird manages to travel at all. The wings fold up very closely as in a grebe, and are of a plain drab colour without any mark. The tail is not always of the same length, but its wiry character and the scantiness of the coverts at its base are distinctive. The stiff-tail is a duck of rather unsocial habits and never seen in large flocks ; those found in India have generally been alone or at most in pairs. They are found on rivers as well as in pools, and are probably pretty widely distributed, specimens having occurred from Kashmir to the Calcutta Bazaar. Here I once got a live one, but this unfortunately had one leg hope- lessly disabled, and moreover would not or could not eat, so I was reluctantly obliged to make a specimen of it. In spite of its affliction it was so tame that it would plume itself while 38 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS being held in the hand. Grebes will also do this, so that even in captivity this species retains the grebe-like w^ays which characterize it when wild. It may also be mentioned that the under plumage, though buff and not white, has the silvery lustre of a grebe's. Very grebe-like was the behaviour of a female procured at Peshawar by Captain Macnab, I. M.S., in 1899. A hawk also tried to " collect" it, but as soon as he made his point above, the duck went under, and after coming up close b}^ dived again, till after about five minutes the hawk went off in disgust. The tail, at full cock when swimming, was straightened out as the bird went down. The call is said to be a grating, quacking note, and the food to consist of small water creatures and vegetable substances. But, as a matter of fact, little has been observed about this bird's habits, though it is widely distri- buted in a sort of central zone, from the Mediterranean region east to our borders. Personally, I believe it breeds in India, because a specimen shot near Hardoi was moulting and had no quills grown. None of our winter water-fowl moult while they are with us, so far as I am aware, while the residents can moult at any time they like, having no long journey to take. How- ever, one must not forget that it is in its winter quarters in South Africa that the common swallow moults. The nest in any case is nothing out of the ordinary, being built among the waterside vegetation and composed of it ; but the eggs are, being remarkable for their coarseness of surface and large size in proportion to the bird, though their colour is simply white. The ducklings are dark brown in the down, with white on the under-parts, conspicuous on the throat and sides of neck, and there are some faint white spots on th(i3 upper surface. Goldci\-cyc. Clangula glaucion. Burgee, Punjabi. It is not surprising that this, the genuine golden-eye, should be often mixed up by Indian sportsmen with the tufted pochard, since both are pied diving-ducks with yellow eyes ; but in reality they are quite easily distinguishable even at a distance, for in the GOLDEN-EYE 39 real golden-eyed drake the breast is white as well as the flanks, and there is a great white patch on the face. Even the female, whose breast is grey like her back, has a white neck sharply contrasted with her dark-brown head, and so is well distinguished from the female tufted duck, whose neck is dark continuously with the head and breast. In flight the golden-eye is distinguishable by sound more than any other duck, the very loud and clear whistle made by the wings, which have no white on the end-quills like those of the tufted pochard, being a most marked characteristic of the species, and often giving it a special name, such as " rattle-wing " and " whistler." There is a good deal of difference in size between the sexes of this species, the drake weighing two pounds or more, sometimes nearly three, while the duck runs more than half a pound less, and looks conspicuously smaller when both are together. Young males are very like females, but the old male in undress may be distinguished, not only by his much greater size, but by having more white on the wing. The golden-eye has a bushy-looking head and a very narrow, short, high-based bill ; the tail is also very characteristic, being longer than ducks' tails usually are. Often, however, it is not to be seen as the birds are swimming, being allowed to trail in the water, but sometimes they float with tail well out of the water, when the length becomes noticeable. On land, where they spend but little time, they stand more erect than most ducks. Golden-eyes in India only appear as uncommon winter visitors, as a rule ; but in the valley of the Indus at one end of our area and the Irrawaddy at the other, they seem to occur regularly, and are also common in the Lakhimpur district, frequenting hill-streams like the mergansers, to which, rather than to the ordinary diving-ducks, they are related. Indeed, this species has been known to produce hybrids with the smew in the wild state, and, like that bird, it breeds in holes in treeo in the northern forests. The golden-eye, however, is found all round the world, nou conhned to the Eastern Hemisphere. It goes in winter either 40 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS singly or in flocks, and Mr. Baker has shot one consorting with gadwall, and noticed that it flew well with them ; in fact, this is the most active f[yev of all the diving-ducks except perhaps the smew. In the water it is a fine performer, and catches fish like the mergansers, also feeding on shell-fish and water-weeds. In diving it seems to slip under, as it were, more neatly than the pochards, the fanning-out of the tail being conspicuous as it disappears ; and it has been noticed that when a flock are below and an alarm comes from above, all the diving individuals will rise and make off out of shot, not coming up and giving the enemy a chance as the pochards will do. The general character of the bird is, in fact, one of extreme wariness, and in this respect it is a merganser rather than a true or typical duck. The alarm-note is given by Mr. Baker as " a loud squawk," but this is no doubt uttered by the female only ; the male's note is different, as is the case with the male mergansers, which this bird resembles in having a large angular bulb in the windpipe. A peculiarity of its beak, unique among Indian birds, should be noticed ; the nostrils are very near the tip, further forward even than in a goose. As an article of food this bird is highly fishy; but its green eggs are esteemed by the inhabitants of the north, who put up boxes for it to lay in. Smew. * Mergus alhellns. Nihenne, Sindi. The pretty little smew is at once known from all our diving- ducks by its short narrow dark beak ; its quick nimble way of rising into the air is also distinctive among this splattering tribe, though it often prefers to swim, which it can do at great speed, rather than fly. It can swim either high or low in the water, and is exceedingly wary. The adult male's plumage is very distinctive and beautiful, being white below and on the head and neck, except for a black patch on each side of the face, like a mask, and a black Y at the back of the head, which has a full, though short crest. * Mercjfillus on plate. > SMEW 41 The rest of the plumage is black, white, and grey, no other colour appearing. The weight is about a pound and a half. Females and young males, which are much smaller, the male not attaining either full size or colour till his second year, and much more likely to be met with, are dark grey above and white below, with bright chestnut head and white throat, and black- and-white wings. They weigh little over the ' pound. The short narrow beak and bright chestnut head with pure white throat extending well up on the jaws make the name .of "weasel-coot," or its equivalent " vare-wigeon," sometimes given as this bird's old Enghsh names, quite intelligible, as there is something decidedly weaselly about the bird's look. In its extreme activity also this little fishing duck recalls the smallest of the four-footed carnivora ; it is the fastest diver of all our waterfowl, flies with ease and speed, and even on land, in spite of the breadth of its body and shortness of its legs, to say nothing of its very large feet, moves quite quickly and looks far less ungainly than many ducks one would expect to walk better. In this activity this bird resembles the mandarin duck, w4iich also, by dint of sheer energy of movement, is able to hold its own with other ducks in departments for which they seem to be better adapted structurally. Another coincidence between these two pretty species is the fact that they both breed in holes in trees ; but the smew is even less likely than the mandarin to be found breeding here. So far it is only known as a winter visitor to the north of India, from ISind to Assam ; it does not appear to go further south than Cuttack, and though fairly well known in the North-west is not abundant anywhere. It is generally seen in flocks of about a dozen, but pairs or single birds may occur. In the case of one such which was shot, the flesh was found to be quite good eating, which was rather unexpected, the smew generally having a particularly bad name for excessive fishiness of flavour. Besides fish, however, it feeds on water- insects and shellfish, and even aquatic plants. It is a widely distributed bird, ranging all across the Old World, though it only breeds in high latitudes. The courtship is very interesting to watch, the bird swimming about with the 42 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS head drawn back proudly like a miniature swan, and the fore- part of the crest raised, while now and then he rears up in the water with down-bent head. Goosander. * Merganser castor. The goosander is a fishing duck built on the lines of a cormorant ; narrow head, long flat body, with legs far astern, rather long tail, and especially long, narrow, hooked beak ; in fact, many people on the first sight of one hardly realize it is a duck at all. However, its striking variegated plumage is quite different from the crow-like coloration of the cormorants : the drake is pied, being below white, with the head, upper back and part of the wings black, the lower back and tail grey, and bright red bill and feet. The head has a green gloss, and the under-parts often show a wash of salmon or apricot colour. The female is very different, being bright chestnut on the head, which in her is well crested ; French grey above, about heron or pigeon-colour, and white below ; the wings are black and white and the legs and bill red, much as in the male, but not so distinct in colour. The male in undress much resembles her. The beak, it will be noticed on close inspection, is set with backward-pointing horny teeth, and has not the wide gape of a cormorant's, and the feet are quite ordinary duck's feet, having the hind -toe short ; not large and webbed to the rest like a cormorant's, so useful both as extension of paddle and a perch- grip. The goosander is one of our largest ducks, the male weighing about three pounds, while even four and a half has been recorded ; females are generally less. They are usually very fat, and, according to Hume, will make a good meal if skinned, soaked, and stewed with onions and Worcester sauce, and if one has not got any other form of meat or game available. This is quite likely to happen where goosanders are shot, as their haunts are different from those of ducks in general ; they are birds of the hill-streams chiefly, being resident in the Himalayas and MergiiH on plate. % •^^< GOOSANDER 43 merely moving up and down according to season ; in winter they may be found all along the foot of the Himalayas, in northern Burma, the south Assamese hills, and even as far south as the Godavari and Bombay, where E. H. Aitken once shot one on salt water. Their food is mainly fish, though they eat other live things as well, and in captivity will feed on raw rice freed from the husks ; they are extremely greedy, and will eat over a quarter of a pound of fish at a meal, digesting bones and all. They are therefore not birds to be encouraged where the fishing is valued, and there is likewise this excuse for shooting them, that they are likely to be appreciated by natives vi^ho, like our Elizabethan ancestors, like a good strong-tasting bird. Moreover, they are really sporting birds ; they are wary and require careful stalking, and when hit are by no means booked, as they will dive literally to the death. Mr. Baker records a case in which a female, after being hit, managed to keep out of range of his boat, propelled by two men, for half an hour, and then appeared on the surface dead, having died while diving, game to the last. They are naturally fast swimmers as well as good divers, and though they often, when floating quietly, sit nearly as high out of the water as an ordinary duck, also swim low with the tail awash, and when wounded or frightened show only the head and neck above water, much like a cormorant. They also have the cormorant-like habit of sitting erect on the shore, partially expanding their wings, though here again their carriage is often level and like that of an ordinary duck. So it is when walking, when they look less awkward than some diving ducks ; when running on land, and this they can do well at a pinch, they stand very erect. They resemble cormorants, too, in often fishing in concert, forming a line across the stream and all diving together, so as to drive the fish before them. Although perhaps preferring the stiller reaches and pools, they are at home in the most rapid and rushing torrents. They are slow in getting on the wing, but fly fast when well up. The note of the drake is a croak like " karr "; of the female a distinct quack. Although the young, which in the down are brown above, 44 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS tinged reddish about the head and neck, and marked with a few white patches, and white below, have been taken in the hills, the eggs have not yet been found in India. They are cream-coloured and very smooth, and number over half a dozen. The nest, well-lined with down, is generally in a hole in a tree or bank in the birds' known breeding-places, which extend all round the world in the northern regions, the supposed distinctness of the American race resting on the most trivial characters. The female often carries her young on her back when swimming. It is a curious thing that there seems to be no native name recorded for this most conspicuous species. Red 'breasted Merganser. Merganser serrator. The red-breasted merganser, which is, like the goosander, found all round the world in the Northern Hemisphere, is chiefly a salt-water bird when it leaves its breeding-haunts on the fresh waters of the north, so that it is not surprising that it should be one of the rarest of our water-fowl. It is probable, however, that it is often confused with the goosander, as the general appearance of the two is very much alike. The male of the present bird can, however, easily be distinguished by having the under-parts not uniformly white up to the green-black head, but the white neck cut off from the abdomen by the reddish-brown, black-streaked breast ; on each side of this there is also a patch of black-and-white feathers, and the flanks are grey in appearance above, being finely pencilled with black. Thus the bird looks darker altogether on the water, and seen on the wing the coloured breast-patch should attract attention. The bird also has a long hairy-looking crest, not a short bushy mane as in the male goosander. The female is much more difficult to distinguish from that of the goosander, but the distinctions are clear enough if carefully looked into. The crest in the present bird is short and not noticeable, the head itself is dull brown, with hardly a tinge of chestnut, the back is mottled drab, not a distinct uniform grey, and the white wing-patch found in both species is in this one COMB-DUCK 45 interrupted by a bar of black. The male in undress is very like the female, but has a black upper back. This species is decidedly smaller than the goosander, but has quite as long a beak, which is, however, much slenderer, less hooked, and shows more teeth. It resembles the goosander in being a greedy devourer of fish, is a fine diver and fairly good walker, and is excessively wary, at any rate in Europe. In India it has only been got once or twice at Karachi, once in the Calcutta Bazaar and once in the Quetta district. Comb-Duck. Sarcidiornis melanonotua. Niikta, Hindustani. The comb-duck is often called, even by Europeans, by its best known native name of Nukta or Nukica, and the practice is one to be commended, as in all cases where a bird is of a type of its own and unfamiliar to Europeans. Although to some extent intermediate between ducks and geese, the nukta would never have been called a black-backed " goose " were the male no bigger than the female, since she is obviously a duck ; he, however, is quite as big as an ordinary wild goose, weighing between five and six pounds, while the female is only about three. In plumage, however, they are much alike, only the female is far less richly glossed with purple and green on the black upper parts, has the sides dirty drab instead of pure delicate grey, and never displays the yellow patch under the sides of tail, and the yellow streak along the head, which the male has when in the height of breeding condition. At this time his black comb is a couple of inches high, but shrinks down to less than half in the off-season ; the female never has one, nor the young male, till he gets his full colour. In immature plumage the birds are brown, not black, but at all stages the combination of white belly with dark under-surface of wings is distinctive of the nukta among our large ducks. The amount of black speckling on the white head varies a great deal individually; the whitest-headed bird I ever saw was a young male, and he had black on the flanks instead of 46 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS grey, and was thus like the male South American nukta, which seems to me, therefore, hardly distinct from ours. The African one is now admitted to be the same as the Indian ; no other species is known. The comb-duck is generally distributed over India, Burma, and Ceylon in suitable localities, such localities being open land provided with plenty of reedy marshes, and scattered large trees ; treeless country the bird dislikes, as it is a perching duck and roosts and breeds in the trees ; nor does it care, on the other hand, about actual forest. It seldom frequents rivers, but may be found on lakes, and in some localities even on small ponds. It will thus be seen that its choice of localities is very different from that of the geese, while it is not sociable like them, being very rarely found in flocks of more than a dozen or so, and commonly in pairs. It associates with no other duck but the ruddy sheldrake, and that not often, as the two birds affect different places ; and unless it happens to be in such company, is not so wary as one would expect a large water- fowl to be. Most of its tune is passed in the water, though it walks as well on land as a goose, and although it feeds freely on rice and land and water herbage, it also partakes of water- snails, insects. Sec, like a typical duck. The brown young birds are good eating, but the adults, though not ill-flavoured, are inclined to be hard ; they should be cooked and served like geese. On the water the bird sits high with the stern raised, like a goose, but both there and on land the neck is carried in a graceful curve, and when courting the male arches his neck and bends down his head, slightly expanding his wings after the fashion of a swan, only much less. The comb-duck swims well, and dives vigorously if pressed ; in flight it is intermediate in style between a duck and a goose ; the male, conspicuous by his size and comb, acts as the leader. It flies and feeds by day, retiring to the trees at night ; it is usually very silent, but the note when heard is variously described, sometimes as loud and goose-like, sometimes as a low guttural quack, or, in the case of the male, as a grating sound ; probably only the female has the loud call. The pair seem nmch attached, and the male acconipanies .^*" COTTON-TEAL 47 the female in her search of a nesting-site in the trees ; such a site is a hole, or tbe place where several large branches diverge ; an old nest of another large bird has been used, and even a hole in a bank ; and the nest has even been said to be sometimes placed on the ground among rushes by the water. The eggs are of an unusually polished appearance for a duck's, and yellowish-white ; about a dozen are laid, some time between June and September. The ducklings in down are brown and white above and white below. The nukta is as well off for names as might be expected ; in Telugu it is Jutu chiUuiva, in Canarese Dod sarle haki, and in Uriya Nakihansa ; Neerkoli is the name in Coimbatore, and Tau-hal in Burma, though the Karens call it Boickhang. Cotton-Tcal. Nettopus coromandelianus. Girri, Hindustani. The jolly little cotton-teal, smallest of Indian ducks, is not a teal properly speaking, and is indeed sometimes considered to be a kind of goose ; this, however, is also wide of the mark, and the bird and its few relatives really stand very much alone, their nearest aliy probably being the nukta. In fact, the male's coloration is very much that of the nukta drake in miniature, the lustrous green of the upper-parts and wings contrasting with the general white hue of the head and under-parts and the grey flanks : but the broad black neck- lace is very distinctive, as is also the white patch on the pinion- quills, only noticeable in flight, but then very conspicuous. The female is brown above and shades into white below ; there is a dark eye-streak as well as a dark cap, and the neck has dark specklings running into cross pencilling below ; she is also like a miniature nukta in colour, but the resemblance in this case is to the immature plumage of the big bird. On the water she looks all brown, and is not conspicuous ; the male, among leaves, may also be very unobtrusive, his green back and white head giving the impression of water-lilies with white flowers — this is not mere theory, for I have made this mistake myself, having at first taken the heads of the drakes of a flock of cotton-teal for 48 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS flowers, and not noticed the females at all. Young males are like females; old birds in undress differ from them by retaining the green-and-white wings. The beak of the cotton-teal is very short and goose-like, but the tail is long for a duck's, and the bird, when nervous, frequently wags it with a quick quivering action. The legs are short and the feet large, and the birds swim and dive well, often diving on alarm ; they do not, I think, regularly dive for food, judging from their hesitation when they do so. Cotton-teal are found over the Empire generally in well watered and wooded districts ; they are naturally therefore not to be found in the dry parts of the North-west. The district where the species is most numerous is Bengal, where it is called Ghangarial or Ghangani, but it penetrates even to the Andamans and is well known in Ceylon. It likes weedy places, and small rather than large pieces of water, and may be found even on wayside ditches, and bush- surrounded pits ; it is generally seen in pairs or small parties of less than a dozen, though Mr. E. C. S. Baker has seen as many as a hundred in a flock. Its flight is very fast, and at the same time it is an adept at twisting and dodging ; Hume never saw it taken by the great foe of water-fowl, the peregrine falcon, the tiny duck side-skidding from the stoop most dexterously, and being below water before the enemy had recovered itself. The flight is generally low, but when thoroughly frightened the birds will go higher. The only weak point of the cotton-teal, in fact, is its walking powers ; it is very seldom seen on land, and when it tries to go fast or to turn round is apt to fall down ; but it is not correct to say it cannot walk at all, as when not hurried it moves on land like other ducks, though slowly and clumsily. This leg-weakness is curious, as it is a perching-bird, roosting and building in trees, so that one would expect it to be at least as strong in the legs as other water-fowl, the perchers being usually good walkers also. The food of the cotton-teal is mainly vegetable ; it seems to feed almost entirely on the surface, and pecks rather than bibbles in the usual duck fashion ; it does not stand on its bead and investigate the bottom like other ducks. As food it is no .^«ir O Ld Q O o 'S: f MANDARIN DUCK 49 better than a coiumon house-pigeon, and as it is so very small, only weighing about ten ounces, and is very tame in many places, it is commonly thought hardly worth shooting, besides which it is such a nice little bird that shooting it is rather like firing at a robin or a squirrel ; it does not seem right to make game of it. The breeding season does not begin before the end of June, and lasts till August ; the birds moult after this, and the drake has his undress plumage in the winter, unlike most other ducks. Holes in buildings as well as holes in trees may be utilized for nesting, and there is reason to believe that the parents, at any rate the female, carry down the little brown and white ducklings like the whistler. The eggs are like miniature nukta's eggs, remarkable for their smoothness and yellowish- white colour; ten is the usual number of the sitting. The note of the male is one of the noteworthy peculiarities of this pretty little creature ; he often calls on the wing, his peculiar cackle being imitated by several native names, such as Lerriget-perriget or Merom-derehet among the Kols, and the Burmese Kalagat. The Uriya name is Dandana, and Gurgurra is used in Hindustani as well as Glrri, Girria, or Gurja. East of India this bird ranges to Celebes and China and reappears as a slightly larger but otherwise indistinguishable race, as far off as Australia. Mandarin Duck. Mx galericulata. Except for one specimen shot by Mr. A. Stevens on the Dibru Eiver in Assam, and recorded by Mr. E. C. S. Baker in his book on Indian Ducks, no Indian-killed example of this beautiful East Asiatic duck is on record, though there is evi- dence that others have been seen, and even in one case shot. These were all females like the one preserved, or males either in young or undress plumage, and therefore in plumage closely resembling that of the female ; and in this species the resem- blance is extraordinarily close in such specimens. Thus the mandarin in India has so far appeared as a small brown duck, rather less in size than a wigeon, with a long tail 4 50 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS for a duck, pointed wings with pinion-qiiills edged with silver- grey and tipped with steel-blue, and a very small beak and large eyes. The upper-parts have no markings of any sort, and the abdomen is pure white, but the breast and sides are mottled with brown and buff. The head is greyish and crested, the male having more grey tint and less crest than the female, which also has a narrow white ring round the eyes. The male's feet are orange, the female's olive. In full plumage the drake is well known to everyone who takes any interest in waterfowl ; the orange-chestnut fans in his wings are unique, and one of these feathers would be enough as a record of the species ; he also has an orange ruff of hackles, and an enormous crest of copper, green, and white, besides showing many other sharply contrasted colours in his plumage, and possessing a bill of the brightest pink-red or cerise. This duck is well known in captivity in India as well as in Europe, being exported from China. Here it breeds, as also in Japan and Amoorland ; it nests in holes in trees, and spends much time in them, being a thorough wood-duck and a regular percher. The notes of the sexes are quaint; the drake snorts and the duck sneezes ! The mandarin is quick and active in its movements in walking, swimming, and flying ; and, although feeding much on land, where it often grazes like a wigeon, or searches for acorns in woods, it nevertheless dives for food occasionally, and is more active under water than almost any surface duck. It is poor eating, and not a bird to shoot more specimens of than can be avoided, owing to its beauty and interesting habits. It only goes in small flocks and does not seem to be an object of sport anywhere. Ruddy Sheldrake. Casarca rutila. Chakioa, Hindustani. This showy spoil-sport, so conspicuous in its foxy-red plumage on laud or water, and, if anything, more striking in flight, with its broad slowly -beating black-and-white wings making it tri-coloured, is a bird that cannot be overlooked where RUDDY SHELDRAKE 51 it is found, and it occiu's all over oui* Indian Empire except in the extreme south of India and Ceylon, where it is rare, Tenasserim, and the islands of the Bay of Bengal. It is a winter visitor in the plains, but breeds in the Himalayas. Even if it were not so conspicuous by its colouring — and one gets the full benefit of this by its habit of frequenting the most open places — its voice would make its presence known every- where, especially as it is seldom silent for long, and even when conversing with its beloved mate and unalarmed, has no idea of lowering its trumpet tones, which have something very stirring and picturesque about them. There is no noticeable difference in the trumpeting call of the sexes, and their colour also looks alike at a little distance; but on close inspection it will be seen that the female has a white face, contrasting with the buff of the rest of the head, which is in both sexes much lighter than the body as a rule. The male also has in some cases a black collar round the neck, which is supposed to be assumed in summer and lost in winter, though in captive birds, at any rate, and probably often in wild ones, the reverse may be the case. Many birds of this species in India are very washed-out in colour, no doubt owing to bleaching, since in England, where the bird is a familiar favourite on ornamental waters, they are always of the beautiful auburn or chestnut tint. The Brahminy duck, to give this species the name by which it is usually known in India, is a lover of sandy shores and clear open water, and prefers the banks of rivers to any other haunt, being usually seen in pairs. It keeps more on the land than in the water, walking with an upright carriage and very gracefully ; when it does swim it is with the stern high like a goose, and its diving powers are rather limited. It seems to be chiefly an animal feeder in India, devouring small shell-fish and other forms of animal life to be found along the water's edge ; it has even the reputation, apparently justified in some cases, of eating carrion ; but it admittedly feeds on grain, grass and young corn as well even in India, and in our London parks seems to graze nearly as much as a goose, though there it spends an abnormal amount of its time in the water, no doubt because being pinioned it cannot fly about. 52 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS It is not good eating, though it is rendered more tolerable by being skinned, as is the case with so many rank birds of this family; and might be very well left alone by sportsmen if it would only let them alone. This, however, it will not do ; it has a very practical working knowledge of the range of a gun, and gets up just out of shot, trumpeting out a duet with its partner, which naturally puts all the other fowl on the alert. As a remedy for this, Hume recommends shooting a few with the rifle, which so frightens the survivors as to make them keep their distance to some purpose — so far off will they then get up that other fowl do not consider there is anything to worry about, and disregard them. This warning propensity is evidently due to natural noisiness and not to public-spiritedness, for the birds are most unsociable by nature, and, although flocks may sometimes be seen with us in winter, in the breeding season the pairs keep strictly separate, and persecute all other water-fowl, of their own species or any other, including even geese. Even in winter, students of the London park water-fowl may notice that the other birds are nervous of them, and even the mandarin, with all his pluck and bounce, shows by bis manner that he knows he is taking risks in snatching the bread from the mouth of the ruddy sheldrake. In Indian limits this bird has only been found breeding at a high elevation in the Himalayas, 10,000 feet and upwards ; the nests are in holes in cliffs, and several are found in the same quarter. The eggs are eight in number as a rule, and creamy- white ; the ducklings mostly sooty-black above and white below ; they will dive for food while in the down, although their parents are strictly surface-feeders. The ruddy sheldrake also breeds from Central Asia west, all along the Mediterranean, and visits China as well as India in winter. In Northern Burma it is very common, and known SLsHintJia. The Hindustani name Chakwa (with the feminine form Chakwi) is not the only one, Surkhab being also used ; Nir-batha or -koli is the name in South India, Mungh in Sind, Bugri in Bengal, the Telugu name is Bapana Chilhiica, and the Marathi Sarza or Chakraicak. LJ < Q- < cr o Q / •*y <- COMMON SHELDEAKE 53 Commorv Sheldrake. Tadorna cornuta. Shah-Chakwa, Hindustani. Tlie real original or typical sheldrake, a well-known sea- coast bird at home, and the only surface-feeding duck which is a sea-bird anywhere, is a rather rare winter bird only in India, being only at all common in Sind, where it is called Niruji, and not going far south anywhere, though it ranges east to Upper Burma. The Hindustani names of Safaid Surkhab and Chandi Hans, however, which are in use as well as that given above, show that the natives know the bird well, and it is one that once seen is never forgotten — its predominant white colour, indicated by its native names, and set off by a black head and wing-tips, chestnut breast-band joining on the shoulders, and scarlet bill, are quite unique and unmistakable. Even the yearlings, in which there is no chestnut tint, and whose beaks are merely flesh-colour like the feet, are quite unlike any other duck. In size this bird is a little less than the ruddy sheldrake or Brahminy duck, being about as large as the mallard or spotted-bill, though much higher on the legs. It walks and runs well and gracefully like its ruddy relative, and also swims high in the stern ; the male floats particularly high in the water and looks decidedly bigger than the female, but there is practically no difference in plumage, although the drake's is richer in its hues. He has, however, a knob at the base of the bill in the breeding-season, and some trace of this is always visible in fully adult birds. The note differs greatly in the two sexes in this sheldrake, being in the male a low whistle, while the female's is loud and harsh, something between a quack and a bark. Though perhaps more often seen ashore than afloat, this duck is more of a water bird than the Brahminy, and can at a pinch dive well and go some distance under water. It is wary and hard to shoot, and as food it is one of the very worst of ducks, and indeed is not usually regarded as eatable. It feeds chiefly on small animal life, especially minute shell-fish, but also eats grass. All across the Old World it is a well-known bird in the north by the sea 54 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS and lakes, but the bird known as sheldrake in the United States is our red-breasted merganser ; the prefix " shel " means pied, and no doubt was originally common to both species, as showing much white. White-winged Wood-Duck. * Asarcornis scutulata. Deo-hans, Assamese. The white-winged wood-duck is easily distinguished from all our other water-fowl by the contrast of its white head and the white inner half of its wings with its entirely dark body ; its great size, which exceeds that of all other Indian ducks, is likely to cause it to be mistaken for a goose when seen on the wing at a distance, but close at hand, whether seen on land or water, it is a most unmistakable duck, with nothing of the goose about it. The plumage of greenish-black and dark olive and red-brown, the black speckling on the white head, and the unique blue-grey bar bounding the white of the wing are common to both sexes, as are the yellow of the bill and feet, the former more or less speckled with black ; but it is only in the male that the bill becomes red and swollen at the root when the bird is in breeding condition, and he is very noticeably larger than the female, which, big bird though she is, does not average more than five or six pounds ; a drake weighs about eight. This splendid duck is a resident in our Empire, but very local and even yet not well known to most people, although the investigations of Mr. E. C. S. Baker in recent years have taught us a good deal about it. Its main home appears to be Assam, but it ranges east through Cachar and Burma to the Malay Peninsula, and its great haunts are the jungly, marsh- and pond- studded tracts in the country at the base of the hills ; in any case they are to be looked for in forest pools and streams, provided the running water is sluggish. It will thus be seen that their haunts are different from those of ducks in general, Casarca leucoptera on plate. WHITE-WINGED WOOD-DUCK 55 and in a suitable locality a couple of brace may be got in a day, not, of course, without considerable exertion. The birds spend much of their time on trees, and generally occur in pairs or even alone ; flocks do not generally number more than half a dozen when met with. Although so easily tamed that except in the breeding season they can be allowed liberty and even the use of their wings, they are very wary and hard to get near in the wild state. The flight and call are described as goose-like, the note being a loud squawking or trumpeting ; nothing is said about there being any sexual difference in the voice, nor does the male's courting behaviour appear to have been recorded. Those Mr. Baker kept do not, indeed, seem to have shown much inclination to breed beyond pairing regularly, and he found them remarkably good-tempered. This is probably a sign that they were never in real high condition, for birds that go in pairs ought normally to want to "clear the decks" when they think of nesting. Hume similarly found Brahminy ducks very gentle and amiable, whereas, as I have said in my account of that species, they are really quite the reverse if determined on domesticity. A single female wood-duck in the London Zoo recently was sluggish in her habits, and quiet when with Muscovy ducks, but when among the smaller water-fowl I have seen her make a spiteful grab at one now and again. I noticed that the gait on land and style of floating in the water, in this bird, were not in the least like those of the nukta or sheldrakes, with both of which this species has been associated, but like that of an ordinary duck such as the mallard or spotted-bill. The squawking voice, goose-like flight, style of wing-marking, and general habits, however, seem to point out that this bird is really a peculiar type of sheldrake, and the swelling of the drake's beak in spring is similar to what happens in the common sheldrake, as well as in the nukta. Although Mr. Baker's specimens dived freely to catch live fish put in their tank, the wild birds are found not to dive when wounded, but to go ashore and hide in the jungle. They like various small animals, such as snails, insects and frogs, as well as fish, and prefer these to grain in captivity, though they would 56 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS eat and thrive on the latter; they would not touch dead animal food, which is curious, as mergansers make no difficulty about this, though true fish-eaters. I presume they are fairly good eating, as an Assam planter who shot them regularly used to eat them equally so. The birds nest in holes and hollows of trees, the breeding season being about May, and they moult in September, retiring to the most remote swamps for safety. Outside our limits this bird is found in Java, and is siid to be domesticated there. Small Whistler or Whistling Teal. Dendrocycna javanica* Silli, Hindustani. The loud whistling call of several syllables uttered by this duck will at once strike the newcomer to India as something new in duck utterances ; it has evidently given the bird the Hindustani name above-noted, as also the variants of Silhahi and Chihee, while the Burmese rendering Si-sa-li is even closer. The flight of the bird is as distinctive as the note; the legs, unusually long for a duck, and the neck tend to droop, at any rate when flying low, and the large blunt wings, which are all black underneath, contrasting with the brown body, are moved quickly, although the flight is not fast. The birds may settle in a tree, which naturally seems an even more remarkable performance than their vocal one ; and, indeed, the dend7'ocycnas, which are essentially tropical ducks, are often called tree-ducks as a group. The whistling, cackling call^ however, which is common to both sexes, is a far more distinctive peculiarity than the perching habit, common as this is to most ducks resident in the tropics. No doubt crocodiles and alligators have done their share in establishing this custom ! The plumage is as alike in the two sexes in this duck as the call, and this is again a group peculiarity ; in the present bird there is no striking marking, but the combination of * arcuata on plate. ^.A^ ''X h- 3r o o □ SMALL WHISTLEK OR WHISTLING TEAL 57 brown body and wings nearly all black will distinguish this bird from all our species but the large whistler, of which more anon. On the water it swims rather low, and the neck seems long in proportion to the narrow body and very short tail, while the wings fold so closely that the tips are not seen. This is a small duck, only weighing a pound or a little over, but it is absurd to call it a teal on that account ; the teal are pigmy relatives of the typical ducks, while these whistlers are a very distinct group, and in many w^ays are more like small geese than ducks. The present bird is the most abundant of the resident Indian ducks, and is found nearly all over the Empire where wood and water are combined, even down to the Andamans and Nicobars. But it is essentially a warm-climate bird, and does not often ascend the hills, nor is it to be found in dry treeless districts. In the Punjaub, where the migratory ducks are so common, it is rarely seen. The sort of water it likes is that overgrown with weeds, and here it is quite at home, be the water a village pond or an extensive jhecl. At night it roosts on a neighbouring tree, feeding among the weeds during the day, but seldom going ashore to do so. On land it walks well and gracefully, though slowly ; but it is essentially a water bird, and dives for food freely, though its action in so doing is just like that of a coot, as it springs high in starting, lifting its whole body out of the water. Naturally, it is difficult to bring to book if wounded, but Europeans generally refuse to regard it as game, owing to its general tameness and slow flight. This is a mistake, for it occurs in flocks of thousands where the locality suits it, and where it is common it must greatly interfere with the game migratory ducks. It is a most quarrelsome bird with others, attacking in combination ; I have seen even four set on to one spotted- bill in captivity. Even its own big cousin next to be described comes in for its bullying, and gives way to it. The flesh of whistlers is poor in most people's opinion, but will do for soup, and is liked by natives. The food is water-plants and snails, rice, &c. The birds breed usually in holes of trees or in the old nest of some kite or crow, but they also make nests for themselves 58 INDIAN SPOETING BIKDS either in trees, on cane-brakes, or among rushes — about anywhere where any duck ever does nest, in fact, except underground, though nests made by the birds themselves on the boughs, a rare habit among ducks, are the most usual. The eggs are rather rounded, very smooth, and creamy-white when fresh ; while the female is sitting the drake keeps guard close by, and the young are carried down to the water in the old birds' feet. The bird, which extends outside our limits to Java, has many native names : Saral, Sharul, Harrali-hans, in Bengali ; Hansrali in Uriya ; Horali in Assam ; and Tatta Saaru in Ceylon ; Tingi in Manipur ; the Telugu name is Yerra Chilluwa. Large Whistler. Dendrocycna majoi\ Burra Silli, Hindustani. The large whistler presents the peculiarities of its small common cousin in an exaggerated form ; it is longer-necked and more leggy, and has bigger feet and head ; its wings are blacker, and its body-colour a much richer brown — chestnut instead of dun, in fact ; its feet are often much lighter, French-grey instead of dark slate ; and it is far bigger, weighing up to two pounds, though it takes a good male to reach this. Nearly all these distinctions, however, though the most striking, are comparative ; more positive ones are the presence of a transverse curved patch of cream colour above the large whistler's tail, most noticeable when it takes wing ; this is replaced by dark inconspicuous maroon in the small whistler, which, on the other hand, has a conspicuous yellow ring round the eye, owing to the edge of the eyelids being thus coloured ; in the large bird they are grey, like the bill and feet. On the water the much more strongly developed streaking of cream colour on the flanks, as well as the redder head and breast and darker back, make the big whistler noticeable. It swims as well and dives as freely as the small kind, but also comes ashore a great deal more, and does not divide its time so rigidly between the water and the trees. On the wing it is far swifter, and being more wary, is a really sporting bird ; ""NT >^ /// //.p// ^ LARGE WHISTLER 59 some people also think it better on the table. It is resident in our Empire, but cannot be called a common, widely distributed or abundant bird ; it only goes in small flocks, never in the dense masses such as are seen in the case of the small whistler, and is only really numerous in Bengal, though ii ranges east into Burmah, west to the Deccan, and south to Madras. Outside our Empire it is not found in Asia. It feeds on much the same food as the small whistler, with an especial fondness for rice, wild or cultivated, and selects the same situations for nesting as a rule, i.e., old nests, holes in trees, or suitable boughs on which the birds make a nest of their own ; they have not, however, as yet been found nesting on the ground, but this is probably because they are so scarce and local in comparison that there are not the same opportunities for observation, or for variation in the birds' habits for that matter, that there are in the case of the small common species. Although they are afraid of this bird, and less aggressive with other ducks, they will fight readily enough with each other in captivity, springing right out of the water and striking with their feet. They also pair freely, unlike most of this group, w4iich displaj'- little sex-proclivities in captivity, except for tickling each other's heads like doves or love-birds. The eggs are white, and rather larger than those of the common whistler, though extremes meet. Outside Asia the large whistler, sometimes called the fulvous duck, is found in tropical Africa and the warm regions of America. This is a most extraordinary range for a bird that does not undertake long migrations, and calls for considerable elucidation ; there can be no doubt that the bird is greatly dis- advantaged in India by the competition of its abundant and aggressive relative, but then, on the other hand, it is far more hardy, bearing the English winter outdoors when the small kind looks thoroughly miserable and soon dies off, and even breeding. So one would think that it might have colonized cooler climates and struck out a line of its own ; but possibly it once had a more northerly range, and has become reduced to its present location by some cause which we do not at present understand — at any rate, its persistence in indistinguishable form all round the tropics is a unique phenomenon in bird-life. 60 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS Bar-hcadcd Goose. Anser iiuUcus. Kareiji Hans, Hindustani. Although not breeding in India, but a winter visitor only, this is the wild goose of the country, visiting it in enormously greater numbers than any other species, and being far more widely distributed. The white head marked with two black cross-bars is unique among geese, but this colouring is not found in the young of the year, which have the crown brown continuous with the back of the neck. The real and most striking peculiarity is the pure light grey colour, more like that of the ordinary gulls than the usual brownish grey of geese in general : the legs are orange, and the bill the same or lighter, black-tipped. These geese seldom weigh quite six pounds. The bar-headed goose is commonest in Upper India, but is not plentiful in the Central Provinces, and decidedly rare further south. To the east it is common in Upper Burmah, and ranges into Manipur, where it is called kang-nai. Ceylon it does not visit at all ; none of the true geese occur there, in fact, all being essentially birds of the north. From Gujarat it is also absent, but at the opposite end of India, in Western Bengal, extremely numerous. Like geese generally, it is eminently a gregarious bird, and the flocks are sometimes very large ; they may contain as many as five hundred birds. Hume says that he has seen as many as ten thousand, in flocks of varying sizes from one hundred up, on a ten-mile reach on the Jumna. Of course large birds like these, in such numbers, do an enormous amount of damage to crops, all sorts of herbage, whether of pulse or grain, coming nito their bill of fare, though late rice is perhaps the favourite. As they commonly feed at night, though when undisturbed they will graze up to 9 a.m., and long before dark, a great deal of harm can be done without much chance of its being averted. After a course of this sort of feeding, they are in fine condition for the table at the appropriate time of Christmas ; but when they first come in, in October, they are thin and in poor case. As a general rule they all leave for the north again in March or early April. This goose prefers rivers to standing water for "% .^ o LxJ CO -z. < BAR-HEADED GOOSE 61 its daytime rest, but, like the geese generally, does not go into the water much, but remains on the banks, with sentries set to give the alarm if required. Sometimes, however, the flocks ride at anchor, as it were, in the middle of a river or tank. Drifting" down on them in a boat, where they are found on a river, has been found a satisfactory manner of approach ; and they are often shot at ilighting-time in the evening. They fly in the V-figure which is usually assumed by travelling geese, and, for such birds, are unusually active, as well as strong, on the wing. Damant records a curious example of this : " In Manipur," he says, " I have often watched them returning from their feeding grounds to the lake where they intend to pass the day ; their cry is heard before they themselves can be seen ; they then appear flying in the form of a wedge, each bird keeping his place with perfect regularity ; when they reach the lake they circle round once or twice, and Anally, before settling, each bird tumbles over in the air two or three times precisely like a tumbler pigeon." I have seen domestic geese turn somersaults in the water when playing, but "looping the loop" is somehow a performance one hardly expects of a goose. In spring, also, in its breeding haunts, the bird chases its mate on the wing. As geese go, however, this species is graceful and active on land also; it sits high in the stern on the water, like geese generally. The note is harder and sharper than that of the grey goose, according to Hume, who says the two species can be distinguished by this alone when passing overhead at night. They do not associate, though often seen near together. Although the bar-headed goose is found on the Kashmir lakes and elsewhere in the hills up to 7,000 ft., it does not breed in India, but in Ladakh, Central Asia and Tibet. The four or five eggs are white, and are to be found on islands in the Tso- mourari lake even before the winter ice breaks up. The goslings are yellow, shaded with olive above, and have black bills and feet, as I have seen in specimens bred in Kew Gardens. The Ladakhi name for the bird is Neg-pa ; the Nepalese call it Paria, and the Tamils Nir-hathu ; Birwa is also a Hindustani name. 62 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS Grey or Grey-lag Goose. Anser ferus.^ Sona hans, Hindustani. Everyone who has seen a grey domestic goose at home knows what this bird is hke ; only the wild race is smaller, its form is slighter and more elegant, and the beak and feet, generally orange in tame geese, are pink or flesh-coloured. In spring the bill becomes very rich in tint in Indian specimens, a bright rose or light carnation red. Old birds are heavily marked with black on the belly, and these should be avoided when selecting geese from one's bag for one's own consumption, according to Hume's sage advice, as apt to be tough and hard. Such birds may weigh as much as eight and a half pounds. ,0n the wing this goose can be discriminated from all the other dark-grey or brown species by the pale French-grey tint of the inner half of the wing, which shows up very conspicuously in flight, appearing nearly white. The gaggling note is like that of the tame goose at home, but not so shrill and high as that of Indian tame geese, which are of the Chinese species {Cygnopsis cygnoides) so well known as ornamental birds in our parks. This black-billed brown goose is found wild in Eastern Asia, and may hereafter be found to occur m the east of our Empire in that condition. The grey goose is the only common goose in India besides the bar-headed, and, like that bird, is only a winter visitor ; all along the northern Indian and Burmese provinces it is common, but its numbers bear no comparison to those of the bar-head except in Sind ; in Gujarat, however, it is the only kind found. Like the bar-head, it visits Kashmir and parts of the Himalayas at a moderate altitude. Its southern limit for the most part is that of the Gangetic plain. It is, if anything, more gregarious than the bar-headed goose, flocks of upwards of a thousand being seen on the west, where it is most abundant ; these flocks in flight observe the usual V formation and travel with a rapid but stately flight. They get under way slowly, and Mr. E. C. S. Baker advises that when cinereus on plate. ID LjJ CC UJ z. cc Lu] CO z GREY OR GRE.Y-LAG GOOSE 63 stalking tbem one should put in one's first barrel at them on the ground, and give them the second as they rise. Although wild geese are often much less wary in India than they pro- verbially are in Europe, they will be found to need careful stalking where natives have guns, and in such places it is of no use getting one's self up as a native in a blanket disguise, a bullock used as a stalking-horse being much better. ' They may also be shot when by the side of rivers by gliding down on them in a boat, as mentioned in the case of bar-headed geese, but there must be some arrangement to conceal the shooter's head. They keep more on the shore than in the water, and walk well, if not so gracefully as the bar-heads ; they are also fast swimmers, and dive freely in play or when wounded, but cannot keep under long. Having the same vegetarian habits as geese in general, and bemg often so numerous, they are only second as crop ravagers to bar-headed geese, and like them, do much of their mischief at night. The younger birds, when well fed, are good eating j actual yearlings may be distinguished by having the feathers of the usual rounded shape, the square- tipped feathers being a peculiarity of geese after they have got their adult plumage, and particularly noticeable in the darker species owing to the light tippings showing up in transverse bars on the back and flanks. Even with big birds like this goose, however, eagles, and in tidal waters crocodiles, prove a great nuisance b}' making off with wounded birds, astonishing as it may seem that a com- paratively slight-built eagle like the common ring-tailed river eagle of India (Haliaetus leucoryphus) should be able to lift and carry such a weight, which must much exceed its own. Grey geese come in and depart at about the same time as the commoner species ; their breeding-grounds are in Northern and Central Asia and in Europe, including a few localities in Britain. They also visit Europe in winter, but at home are the least numerous of the regular visitants among the geese. It is just possible they may be found breeding in Kashmir ; the nest is a mass of reeds, &c., piled upon the ground near water, and the eggs white, and about half a dozen in number. The goslings have black legs at first. In Hindustani this species is sometimes 64 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS called Baj-hans as well as the bar-headed, and s,\Ym\di.x\y Kangnai is used in Manipar. The Nepalese name Mogula is, however, quite distinct. Pink-footed Goose. A)iser hraclujrhynchus. Although Hume noticed in a pair of these birds he shot from among a flock of greys in 18G4 on a sandbank in the Jumna, that as he looked down upon them from a cliff above "they were conspicuous by their smaller size, clove-brown colour (that is what they looked at a distance), and very pink feet," some allowance must be made for variation. The feet of the grey-lag are sometimes about the same shade as those of the pink-footed, and the tone of the plumage also varies, as well as the size, the pink-footed sometimes weighing as much as the smaller grey geese. The real distinguishing point is the bill, which is black at the base and tip, only pink on the intermediate space, in young birds only a band nearer the end ; the pink is sometimes very rich — carmine, in fact — and sometimes, both on the bill and feet, verges on or is replaced by orange. The slaty-grey inner half of the wing, however, which resembles the same part in the grey goose, though darker like the rest of the plumage, will distinguish a pink-footed goose whose feet are not a true pink from the orange-legged bean-goose ; besides which the bean-goose is a big-billed bird, the beak being two and a half to three inches, while the pink-footed, as indicated by its scientific name, which means " short-billed," has a particularly small beak, only a couple of inches long, and narrow in proportion. The pink-footed goose is one of our winter rarities, but has been reported on several occasions, though actual specimens have very rarely been preserved. It has been reported from the Punjaub, Oudh, Assam, and the Shan States, and Mr. E. C. S. Baker has one procured in Cachar. This specimen was got by a fluke by one of his native collectors out of a very wide-awake flock of about a dozen, and a Hock of twenty has been reported from the Punjaub. Wi ^' \ V \. 'VX CO CJ >- HI < en .CD en BEAN-GOOSE 65 It is possible, however, that, as Mr. Baker says, this species may have been mixed up with Sushkin's goose, Anser neglectus, a little-known species recently described, ranging as near as Persia, and believed to have been obtained in India. This also has pink feet and the centre of the bill pink, but it resembles the bean-goose m plumage, having no slate-colour on the wing, and its bill is about two and a half inches long, though not so well developed as in the bean-goose. I must say I am very suspicious of all these supposed new species of geese, and I am inclined to suspect that as the pink-footed goose may have orange where it ought to be pink, the bean-goose may return the compliment. Also, what is there to prevent these nearly allied geese from hybridizing, which geese do most readily in captivity? Anyone, therefore, shooting a pink-footed goose of any sort should be careful particularly to record the colour of wing and size of bill, these being the great points in these half-black- beaked species of geese. The true pink-footed goose is a western bird, its breeding- places being in arctic Europe ; it is the commonest of the " grey " inland-feeding geese known at home — in fact the most numerous of all our wild geese, except the " black " brent of the sea coasts. Bean-goose. Anser fabalis.* The beau-goose, like the grey-lag, is a big bird with a large strong bill, indeed bulged and coarse in some specimens ; by the colour of this, which is black at the tip and for a varying amount of the base, the remaining portion being orange, it can be dis- tinguished from any large-billed goose found with us. The legs are also orange, and the general colour of the plumage dark greyish-brown rather than grey. Although there are several reports of its occurring in India, there seems to be no actual Indian-killed specimen on record ; yet Blyth, who was perhaps the best naturalist that ever lived, * segetum on plate. 66 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS definitely said that Gould had one which was killed in the Deccan. As the bird has a wide distribution in the north of the Eastern Hemisphere, and visits the shores of the Mediterranean in winter, it is at any rate highly probable that these records are correct. Several forms are distinguished, chiefly differing in the distribution of the colours on the bill and in the size. The bird figured in Hume's plate is of the race distinguished as aroensis, in which the orange occupies the bill nearly to the exclusion of the black, whereas in the typical form this colour is confined to a band in front of the middle of the bill, the bill being thus mostly black. This is generally the case also with the race middendorfi, which visits China in winter, and is certainly a probable visitor ; but BIyth said that Gould's bird was a common bean-goose, while the bird named after von Middendorf is particularly large, especially with regard to the bill, and is prone to exhibit a yellowish shade on the head, admittedly variable, however, and accidental, like the rusty stain so often found on the head of the swan. It is also admitted that there may be much more than a mere band of orange on the bill of this Eastern bean-goose, and so it seems most advisable at present to call them all simply bean-geese ; anyone who shoots a specimen can indulge in details of marking and measurement to his heart's content. White-fronted Goose. Anser alhifrons. Every goose that has some white on the forehead is not necessarily a white-fronted goose, nor does the absence of white in that part disqualify a bird for the title; for the grey-lag often shows a little white at the base of the bill, and young white- fronted geese have none, but are rather darker there than elsewhere. The real distinctive points are the combination of orange legs with a yellow or flesh-coloured or pink bill, changing after death to orange, but in any case without any black on it. The body-colour of this bird is much browner than in the grey goose. WIIITE-FKONTED GOOSE 67 and the size niucli siualler as a rule, larfje specimens weighing little over five pounds. The bea^v is also smaller in proportion, measuring only two inches, while the grey-lag's is two and a half to three. The white front, when fully developed in adult birds, is in the form of a broad band across the forehead and bordering the base of the beak ; in adult birds also the belly has transverse black markings, often so pronounced that this part is practically all black. The white-fronted goose is with ns a rare winter visitor, but may turn up anywhere in our northern territories, from Sind to Burma. It is met with by itself, not along with other geese, although only found singly or in twos and threes. Three, for instance, was the number observed and shot by Hume on his first record of the species in November, 1874; these birds were shot on the Jhelum, and one of them, which was only wounded, led him a literal wild-goose chase before being secured, twice rising and flying off strongly for a long distance before he finally got it, to the great disgust of his men, who, as he says, " were tired of plodding through the loose sand ; all objected to going further after this goose. In the first place they declared he had flown away altogether out of sight ; in the second place they said I might have killed a dozen geese during the time I had wasted over this one wounded bird, which was, moreover, a very small one. There was almost a mutiny, but I had marked the bird precisely and insisted on going up to the spot," when the deplorable disregard for science exhibited by these benighted natives was punished by the goose's opportune appearance just as it was despaired of even by their master. These specimens proved to have " fed entirely on some species of wild rice, and on tender green shoots of some grass or grain " — the ordinary food of geese, in fact. Indeed, there is nothing special about the habits of this species to record, though its cry is rather different from that of the grey goose, being often compared to laughter ; in fact, laughing goose is a well-known name for it. AVhen in India it has usually been found to frequent rivers. It ranges all across the Northern Hemisphere in high latitudes, though the American birds, which are larger 68 INDIAN SPOKTING BIRDS than the Old World ones, are nowadays commonly referred to a so-called species, Anser gamheli. Should this large, and especially large-hilled, form turn up here, the entirely light bill will distinguish it from all our large species except the grey-lag, and the orange feet from that. It goes as far south as the Mediterranean in winter, and at that time is one of the familiar wild geese that worry farmers and bother shooters at home. Dwarf Goose. Anser crythivpus* This small edition of the white-fronted goose is hardly bigger than the Brahminy duck, and being of a decidedly dark brown colour, is recognizable at a considerable distance. Close at hand, it will be noticed that the eyelids are of a yellow colour, forming a noticeable ring round the eye ; this forms a positive distinction from the large white-fronted goose, and besides, the bill is small even in proportion to the smaller size of the bird, as usual in small geese, while the wings are longer, reaching even beyond the end of the tail. It is not, therefore, surprising to hear that it is more active in flight than the big geese. These points will distinguish even the young bird before the white on its forehead has developed, though all the Indian specimens I have seen have had it; and this white patch when present is another good distinction, being much longer and extending up on to the crown, instead of developing mostly in a transverse direction. The legs are orange as in the large species, and the bill is said to be orange in the adults and reddish grev in the young, but in those live specimens I have seen, mostly fine adults, the bill has been a very bright rose-pink or cerise red, though one or two, no doubt younger, certainly so in one case, had it flesh-colour. I expect the colour changes after death, or is individually or locally variable, as in the grey goose, which in Europe has often an orange bill. The dwarf goose is only a winter visitor to India, and if anything rarer than its larger relative ; very few have turned up * minutus on plate. KED-BREASTED GOOSE 69 since the first record in October, 1859, when Irby killed a couple and saw another near Sitapur in Oiidh. But it has been got here and there in the north as far east as Lakhimpur. In 1898, four came into the Calcutta Bazaar, and I got them on behalf of the Calcutta Zoo ; three were brought all together on New Year's Day, but they had been sent down from up-country, and had their wings cut. It is worth noting that these birds did not moult at the proper time that year ; two died, and I determined to pull the quills of the others to start the moult and save their lives. This I did, not without difhculty, but the result was they moulted all right, and lived and moulted normally for some time after, not seeming to feel the heat at all, though this species is a high northern bird, breeding close to the unmelting ice. It is common in winter in China, and also visits Japan, but not any part of the New World. It is an Eastern species, and as rare at home as in India. Rcd-brcastcd Goose. Branta ruficollis. Shak-voy, Siberia, A very small black-and-white goose, with a breast nearly as red as a robin's, is such a remarkable bird that it can hardly be overlooked anywhere, and so the fact that it has been recognized in India is not surprising, though the paucity of even visual records, and the absence of any actually obtained specimen, bear eloquent witness to its rarity. Like the dwarf goose, it is hardly larger than the Brahminy duck, and has very long wings and a particularly small bill ; its colours also, curiously enough, are practically those of the Brahminy, though very differently distributed. The general hue is black, with white stern and broad white band along the flanks ; as this comes just above the water-line, the bird would not look nearly so dark on the water as ashore or on the wing. The rich reddish-brown of the fore-neck and breast i^; also bordered with white, as is a patch of the same red on the cheek ; before the eye there is a white stripe. One would expect the female of so richly coloured a bird to be at least a little duller than her mate ; but this is not the case, 70 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS the rule among the tune geese of the similarity of the male and female being strictly observed, and the sooty-brown specimens with dull brownish tints where the red ought to be being the young of both sexes. Even these, however, are quite unmis- takable. The bill and legs are black, the former being remark- ably delicate and small, only about an inch long. The best record of the occurrence of this lovely bird in India is that furnished by Mr. E. C. S. Baker, in his book on the Indian ducks and their allies ; he says there that he " was fortunate enough to see five specimens on a chur in the Brahmapootra, just below Gowhatty ; they arose a long way off as the steamer drove up stream towards them, but turned and flew past us within sixty to a hundred yards, and there could have been no possible chance of mistaking them." His friend, Mr. Mundy, had previously communicated to him a good description of some he had seen on the same river in Dibrugarh. As to the record of 1836 in the Oriental Sporting Magazine, I have looked this up, and quite agree with Blanford that the author of this did not know what he was talking about ; so that these modern ones, in my opinion, remain unique. The red-breasted goose occurs in Europe, including England occasionally, but always as a rarity ; it is, however, not really a very rare bird, being common enough in Western Siberia, where it breeds, and coming as near to us in winter as Persia and Turkestan. It does well in captivity, and while this book was being written I had the pleasure of inspecting a lovely pair which were deposited at the Zoo en route from Germany to the Duke of Bedford's estate at Woburn, where, I heard, there was already another. These birds showed the tame disposition with which this species is credited ; and I must say that if I got hold of a netted or wing- tipped bird in India, I should not dream of killing it, but keep it to send to Europe, since a photograph, if only of the head, would be amply sufficient for the record. X V- UJ LD -z. <: MUTE SWAN 71 Mute Swan. Cijgniis olor. Penr, Punjabi. The only swan which visits India in any numbers, and that only in hard winters, is the well-known bird that is kept as an ornament all over the civilized world. No doubt a few come in every winter, and they have been killed in the hot weather on two occasions ; but that the bird has always been a rarity is proved by the fact that Calcutta dealers have for many years imported them from Europe by the dozen, and by the fact that there is no true native name — Penr really meaning? a pelican. Tbis swan may be distinguished from all others by the black knob at the base of the bill, but as this is little developed in the young birds, the best point to go by is the colour of the bare patch, which extends from the bill to the eye ; this in this species is black as well, whatever the age. In young birds the plumage shows more or less drab, and their bills are not of the full orange-red colour of the old birds, but some shade of grey or pink. Although so well known as a tame bird, and well established as an " escape " breeding at large in some parts of Britain, and, doubtless, elsewhere, this sw^an has, for a water-bird, not a very wide range; nor does it go very far north, its true home being Central and South-eastern Europe and Western and Central Asia. In winter it visits North Africa, but does not go very far west ; and India appears to be its eastern limit on its southerly migrations. And with us it only comes to the North- west, the Peshawar and Hazara districts being the most likely ones in which to find it. The birds have generally been seen singly or in small flocks, and have shown a tameness which has been rewarded by unrelenting slaughter in too many cases — as if one such bird were not enough for a record, the species being so unmistakable. At the same time, although swans are bat rarely eaten in Europe nowadays, it may be remembered that they are edible — at any rate the grey yearling birds — which are still fattened for eating at Norwich, if nowhere else in England. In view of the occasional occurrence of these swans in summer, and of 72 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS the fact that they have laid eggs when kept in captivity in such an unnatural climate as that of Calcutta, it is just possible that they may yet be found breeding somewhere in India, especially in exceptionally cool seasons. Most people know what a swan's nest is like — a huge pile of any vegetable matter the birds can get hold of, placed close to the water's edge, and, if possible, on an islet. But as the birds, to put it mildly, do not encourage examination of the nest when without fear of man, it maj^ be as well to mention that the eggs are about four inches long, pale sage-green in colour, and number about half a dozen. The cygnets are grey normally, but now and then white ones occur ; and these are white even in their first feathering, and have pale clay-coloured or flesh-coloured feet all their lives instead of the usual black or grey. Such birds used to be distinguished as a species, the so-called Polish swan {Cygnus immutabilis). The food of these swans consists of water-weeds and grass, with some animal matter, especially fish-spawn ; in domestication they eat grain freely, but do not come ashore to seek it in the wild state apparently. In fact they do not come ashore much except to rest, generally grazing from the water, where grass on the banks is accessible ; nor, though they stand on their heads to reach the bottom, do they ordinarily dive ; though I once saw a small cygnet do so for about a couple of yards when attacked by a vicious black swan. This Australian bird, by the way, is more freely imported into India than the mute swan, and both species have been known to escape ; so that records, especially if of old birds, and away from the North-west, are not free from suspicion. The birds rise heavily and slowly, but fly fast, though with slow strokes, and, in spite of their awkward gait, a wounded bird has been known to run fast in hundred-yard spurts before hunted down. This species is well called the mute swan, for though not actually voiceless, it is far more silent than other species, and its note, a grunt or a sort of suppressed bark, is not loud. It is one of the largest of flying birds, attaining a weight of tbirty pounds ; though the birds occurring here are not likely to weigh more than half that. ^ { o >- o -h W HOOPER 73 Whoopcr. Cygnus inusicus* The whooper, often distinguished at home as the " wild swan," is a far rarer visitant to India than the mute swan, having been recorded in India less than half-a-dozen times. The earliest record was, curiously enough, in Nepal, and many years before the first record of the mute swan, namely, in 1829. All the other specimens have been got in the North-west, more than one having sometimes been seen. This swan is not noticeably smaller than the other, and is also drab in the first feathering, though white in the down as well as when adult; but it is easily distinguishable at all ages, because the bare patch of skin on the face is always pale, not black — greenish-white in the young, and bright yellow in the adult. The end half of the bill, or less, is black, the old one's beak being black up to the basal end of the nostrils above, though the black does not reach beyond the further end of them below; the rest of the bill is yellow, continuous with the yellow face. The real difhcult3Ms' to distinguish this bird from Bewick's swan, whose distinctions, however, are given below. The bill has no knob, and is longer than in the mute swan, while the nostrils are situated farther forward, being in the middle of the bill, while in the other bird they are nearer the base than the tip. Other distinctions are the short blunt tail, the mute swan's being pointed ; the straight goose-like carriage of tlie neck, and especially the voice, which in this species is a beautiful trumpet- call. This is evidently the swan celebrated in ancient story as singing before its death; in fact, one bird shot in India, on the River Beas, being only winged, "continued to utter its long, loud, musical trumpet-call," while the three birds which had accompanied it were still in sight, as recorded by General Osborn, who shot it, m a letter to Mr. Stuart Baker. The whooper is a true northern bird, being found in the * ferns on plate. 74 INDIAN SPOKTING BIEDS breeding season chiefly in the Arctic liegions, both in Europe and Asia ; but it breeds as near and as far south, apparently, as Seistan, and also nests in Greenland, though not on the American continent. In Iceland it is well known as a nesting species. In winter it regularly comes as far south as Southern Europe in the West, and Corea in the East. Its general habits are similar to those of the mute swan, but it comes ashore to graze more, and is not so awkward a walker. Bewick's S>van. Gygnus hewicki. Bewick's swan is so very like the whooper that it requires a fairly near view to differentiate them, for though Bewick's is a considerably smaller bird, this cannot be appreciated unless there are facilities for comparison, and dimensions vary in both species ; while of course detailed examination is necessary correctly to observe the distribution of black and yellow on the bill, w4]ich furnishes the most reliable distinction. Bewick's swan, like the whooper, has the face and base of the bill yellow, but the yellow is confined to this part of the bill, all the rest being black from the nostrils to the tip, as is also in some cases the ridge of the bill between the nostrils and the forehead. The yellow generally stops short at or before the basal end of the nostrils, all across the beak, and never extends below the further end of them and even beyond that, as it does in the whooper. The young birds in this species are grey, and have flesh-colour on the bill where the old ones are yellow ; the weight is up to twelve pounds, little smaller than some whoopers. The first undoubted Indian example of Bewick's swan was recorded by Mr. E. C. S. Baker, in the Bombay Natural History Society's Journal in 1908, vol. xvni. It was a fine adult bird, and had been killed at Jacobabad, by Mr. McCulloch. In the winter of 1910-1911, two more specimens turned up, one near Mardan, and another at Campbellpur, on December 30 and January 2 respectively; both were adults apparently, and the exceptional cold then prevailing no doubt, as Mr. Baker suggested in record- LU CD CD ID O > COMMON SNIPE 75 ing these specimens, had caused their appearance in our Hmits ; at the same time he recorded the occurrence of a couple of young whoopers, shot out of a flock of seven on the Kabul River. It is very possible that a swan recently recorded as seen near Bharao, though not bagged, may have been of this species, as it is said to have had a small black bill. In any case, there is now^ no doubt about the occurrence of Bewick's swan as an occasional visitor to India, while probably Burma also is within range of its winter wanderings. In fact, as tbis bird has a more eastern range than the whooper, at any rate in the breeding- season, it might be reasonably expected to come in at least as often as that species ; its normal winter quarters in Asia, how- ever, are China and Japan, and in China it seems to be the commonest swan at that season. In the west it ranges in winter as far south as the Mediterranean. It has a quite different and less musical note tban the whooper, resembling the syllable "kiik" many times repeated, and sits high on the water. It comes ashore a good deal, and is a better walker than most swans ; it can, moreover, run well. Common Snipe. Galliuago ccelestis* Chaha, Hindustani. The " fantail " snipe, as this species is often called to distinguish it from the next, is the same bird as the common snipe of Europe ; I mention this particularly, because I have heard of sportsmen proposing — and I believe the idea was carried out — to send some Indian-shot snipe home in cold storage to see if they really were the same as the British birds. But to many people who have not done much shooting before they come out, the difficulty will be to distinguish a snipe from the many sandpipers or snippets ; such small waders being abundant in India, and often sold- — at any rate they were in * scolopacinus on plate. 76 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS the Calcutta Bazaar in my time — for the table as snipe, which argues that a good many people do not know what a snipe ought to be. The characteristic of the true snipe, fantail or pin-tail, then, is the rich dark, well-mottled plumage, showing brown, black and buff, instead of the more uniform and coldly tinted drabs and whity-browns of the sandpiper tribe. In particular is to be noticed the orange-buff tint at the end of the tail-feathers. The great length of the beak, which is about half as long as the rest of the bird, is also a noticeable point, but as some few sandpipers have very long bills, it may be noticed that in such there is always a small web between the nnddle and outside toes, which is completely wanting in snipe of all kinds. There is no difference in colour between male and female snipe, but, on the whole, the hens are bigger than the cocks, the hen's bill sometimes reaching three inches, and her weight five and a half ounces, while a big cock's beak will only be about two inches and three-quarters, and his weight barely over the five ounces ; the average weight of both sexes is given by Hume as 4'2 ounces. The vast majority of fantail snipe are winter visitants to India ; they first come in in any number about the end of August, and September is the usual month for the arrival of these birds, while in Southern India and Burma they are later than this. By the end of March most of them have usually left again, but sometimes many stay on till the middle of April, and even up to June stray birds may occur even in the south of India. The Sub-Himalayan tracts are those which tempt most birds to stay late, being well wooded and well watered. During their stay fantail snipe are found all over the Empire, though their abundance varies in different localities, generally inversely with that of the pintail ; in the southern and eastern provinces of India and in Burma, for instance, this species is the less common of the two, and often quite scarce, while it is the common species of the north-west part of the countr3\ Snipe in distribution and the dates of it are, of course, somewhat affected by weather ; heavy rains and prolonged cold weather will keep them longer in the north, delaying their spread to the lA>> COMMON SiNlPE 77 southern districts, and will likewise delay their final departure in the spring. Although not actually flocking, as so many waders do, they are sociable to the extent that several may generally be found in one locality, and in the arrival and departure of the general body taking place simultaneously. Their chosen ground, as most people know, is swamp or marsh, wherever mud and low grassy cover is available ; paddy-fields naturally appeal to them particularly. They resort to such places for food, which consists mostly, in the case of this species of snipe, of earth- worms, although other small forms of animal life are also taken. The food has to be found by feeling, and the way in which a snipe's bill, by its flexibility, will open at the tip, the end only of the upper jaw being raised to nip the worm, is a wonderful adaptation to this mode of feeding, as is also the " overshot " structure, the upper bill ending in a sort of knob, back of which the lower fits at the tip, so as to penetrate with as little resist- ance as possible. This structure is seen more or less in all true snipe, and is generally a good distinction from the various sandpipers, whose bills are usually less adapted for experimental boring. AVhen they are not feeding, snipe like to be out of water, so during the heat of the day they are to be found on the nearest dry spot back of the mud on land, or even on water- weeds well out in a jheel. Being only small birds, also, they have no use for places where the water is more than an inch or so deep — too much water is just as bad as none at all from their point of view. Colonel Tickell sums up the situation by saying : " It is not easy to describe the ground this bird selects. In paddy fields, I found, where the stubble showed the mud freely — that is, was not too thick — and w^iere puddles of water were interspersed, fringed with short, half-dry, curling grass and small weeds, there the snipe were sure to be if in the country ; and note, if these puddles were coated over with a film of iridescent oily matter (the washings of an iron soil) the chances were greatly increased of a find." The ground on which that celebrated snipe-shot, Mr. W. K. Dods, of Calcutta, made his record bag of 131 couple — 259 of 78 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS the present species, one pintail, and two jack-snipe — is described as " a large swamp tract of country covered with about the worst kind of ' punk ' it has ever been my fate to shoot in, a black reeking mud composed entirely of decayed and decaying vegetable matter in which one frequently sank to one's thighs ; growing in this ooze were dense clumps of hoogola reeds inter- spersed with fairly open glades, where birds could feed, and with other patches of thin null jungle in which snipe delight to rest during the day, secure from the too pressing attentions of the numerous hawks that infest these marshes." Snipe also seek cover in order to avoid the hot sun, for they are not birds of the light by choice, and at times even feed by night, besides migrating at that time. Their peculiar alarm-cry on rising — variously rendered as "scape," "psip," or " pench " — is well known, as also the zigzagging in flight during the first few yards of their course. This style of flight is due to alarm, for a snipe can fly straight from the start if it wants to, and does so when going off undisturbed. The straight-away flight is swift, but it is generally agreed that snipe afford easier shots in India than in England, though there is some difference of opinion as to the advisability of firing at once when the birds rise, or letting them get their twistings over before " letting drive " at them; both methods have been practised by excellent shots. Although their usual breeding haunts lie to the north and west of India, common snipe breed regularly in Kashmir, and very occasionally elsewhere with us. Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker took a nest himself and got the old bird as well, in the Santhal Pergunnas, and had another clutch brought him by his native collector. The birds when breeding produce the curious sound known often as '' drumming," though it is better described as " bleating." There has been much discussion as to how it is produced, but the method seems to be now fully ascertained ; the bird rises to a certain height in the air and swoops down- wards, with the tail outspread and its two outer feathers standing away from and in front of the rest. It has been proved experimentally that these two feathers alone, properly manipulated, will produce the " bleat." In the most interesting experiment of all they were fastened to the notch-end of an PINTAIL SNIPE 79 arrow sliot into the air, and tbe bleat came out as the dropping arrow reached the ground. Both sexes bleat, and they make this noise when alarmed as well as when courting. They also have a double note vocally produced, but not while drumming. Although in the breeding season snipe often perch on posts and trees, the nest is, as one would expect, on the ground, and is a very scanty affair; that Mr. Baker saw was composed of a fine, curly, brown grass. The eggs are peg-top-shaped, of an olive, drab, or brown colour, blotched with dark brown and lavender, and just over an inch long; four is the full set; the chicks run at once, and are mottled with light and dark brown and peppered with silver-white. Snipe have many local names : Tihud or Pan-Iowa among the Mahrattas; Khada-kiichi, in Bengal ; KcEsicatuica, in Ceylon ; Mor-ulan in the Tamil and MukupurecU in the Telugu languages. Pintail Snipe. GaUmago stenura. Mijatj-woot, Burmese. The pintail snipe is so like the common or fantail snipe in appearance, flight, and cry, that few people can distinguish it on the wing, though, as Mr. E. C. Stuart Baker tells us, a friend of his once won a wager with him by correctly referring to their species ten snipe, six fantail and four pintail, as fast as he shot them. When brought to book, however, they can be told apart with one's eyes shut. If one takes the bill of a snipe, of the ordinary type usually shot, in the thumb and fingers at the base, and feels it down to the tip, a distinct, though slight, thickening will be felt at the end in the case of a fantail, while in the pintail the calibre is practically the same throughout. There is also a difference at the opposite end ; on parting the soft feathers, or tail-coverts, which in snipe, as in most ducks, partly conceal the short tail, and counting tbe tail-feathers, there will be found on the fantail to be fourteen or sixteen in number, and all much alike and of ordinary shape, though the two outer are rather stiff and narrow — these are the " bleating " feathers, as remarked in the last article. In the pintail, there are ten 80 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS ordinary feathers in the centre of the tail, while outside these are several pairs, up to eight, the number being variable, of curious short and very narrow feathers ; these are those which give the bird its name, being little broader than a stout pin. Thus a fully developed tail in this species has twenty-six feathers. Specimens with only half-a-dozen pairs of pin-feathers in the tail are unusually large in body, and have particularly yellow legs ; they weigh over five ounces, whereas ordinary pin- tail snipe average 3"91 ounces in the cock and 4"2 in the hen. These big specimens very hkely constitute a distinct local race, or sub-species, for as Mr. W. Val Weston, who first drew attention to them, says, they arrive at a different time from the ordinary pintail snipe, coming in with the fantails, which arrive in India later than the other species. Pintails may come in, though very rarely, in July, and regularly arrive in the beginning of August, but do not get down to Ceylon till October. On the whole they are more distributed towards the southern and eastern parts of our Empire than the fantails ; I give the Burmese name because pintails are the snipe commonly got in Burma, for as a matter of fact natives seem never to distinguish between the two kinds, observant as many of them are. At the end of the year there are hardly any pintails in the north, but in March they are again the more abundant species in the north- east ; and some may be found after the fantails have all gone north. Thus, although in many places and at many times both kinds occur abundantly side by side, on the whole they tend to replace each other quite as much as to occur together. Another factor in their separation lies in a slight difference in their habits — as might be expected from the different form of the bill, which is less adapted for feeling in mud in the pintail — their food is rather different. Both eat worms, but while fantails chiefly con- sume water-snails and water-insects in addition, pintails consume land creatures in large quantities, land snails, caterpillars, and even beetles, grasshoppers, and flying ants. Such food is naturally sought on different ground, and so, though both are often found in the same places, pintail are often found feeding on grass land and in stubble fields, and will lie up for the day in jungle and dry grass. ij - ID 00 02 t— o >- SPOTTED CRAKE 107 to be seen in the day-time unless driven out of its cover, when it flies slowly and heavily. Like rails in general, it keeps near water, or at least on moist ground. It feeds on insects, and can be taken in snares baited with shrimps. The nest is on the ground, and the eggs are spotted with purple and maroon markings on a ground of white or stone-colour with a pinkish tinge. Spotted Crake. Porzana maruetta. Gurguri khairi, Bengali. Known in Telugu as Venna inudikoli, the possession of even two native names shows that this pretty bird is fairly well known, though only a winter visitor. It is short-billed but long- toed, and about the size of a snipe ; the speckling of white all over the plumage is characteristic, the ground-colour of this being of a common rail pattern, streaky-brown above and grey below in adults, though young" birds have a brown breast. The sides are vertically barred, but the dark interspaces between the white bars are grey, not black ; the yellow bill is also a noticeable point. The spotted crake arrives in India in September, and leaves about April ; it mostly visits northern India, though in Jerdon's time it seems to have been more generally distri- buted ; to the coast it extends as far as Arrakan. It par- ticularly frequents rice-fields, rushes and sedge, and has a great objection to exposing itself in the open, while if it is forced up, it drops after a flight of about a score of yards, and declines to appear again. It is worth shooting if come across, as it is good eating, according to Jerdon. It feeds on water-insects, snails, as well as on seeds and herbage. Generally it is found singly, and in any case not more than a pair seem to keep about the same spot. The call- note, mostly heard at night, is a clear loud " kiveet," according to Dresser. This is a widely distributed bird, breeding from our own islands to Central Asia, and, in spite of its great reluctance to fly in the ordinary way, appears to cross the high Karakorum range in its southward migration to the Indian Empire. 108 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS Little Crake. Porzana parva. The little crake is a short-billed and long-toed little bird about as big as a lark, with streaky brown rather lark-like plumage, slightly variegated with white above, and grey below on the old cock, while the under-parts of hens and young birds are buff, shading into brown behind, where the plumage is diversified with white cross-bars in all. Young birds are more freely barred, and show more white on the upper-parts. The little crake is the smallest of our rails except the next species, but is a comparatively bold bird, being found running on water-lily leaves and swimming in the water between them ; it also appears to dive quite freely, and is altogether more of a water-bird and less of a swamp-runner than most rails. It is also a pretty good flyer as rails go, and is only a winter visitor to India, and then only to the extreme North-west, its chosen haunts being the broads in Sind, where it feeds on water-insects. This, like the spotted crake, is a well-known bird in Europe, and does not extend farther than Central Asia to the eastward. Eastern Baillon's Crake. * Porzana pusilla. Jhilli, Nepalese. This little bird is even smaller than the little crake, but closely resembles it, having a black-streaked, white-splashed upper-surface and under-parts grey in front and with white cross-bars behind; but in the present, bird the cock and hen are alike, and it is only the young which differ in having the breast and throat bufdsh instead of grey. But the easiest way to distinguish these two tiny crakes, or pigmy moorhens as they might be called, from their habits, is to remember that in the Eastern Baillon's crake the first wing-quill has a white edge* whereas in the little crake this is not the case. This Eastern race of Baillon's crake of Europe, the original Porzana hailloni, has a dark-brown streak along the face which is * Crex hailloni on plate. WHITY-BROWN CRAKE 109 wanting in the Western form ; it is generally distributed in India and Burma, and is generally resident, though a good many come in in the cold weather from countries to the northward. It reaches not only Ceylon, but the Andamans, and breeds as far south as Tavoy. In the plains it may be found nesting up to September, but though nesting begins about the same time in the Himalayas — in June — it does not go on so late there. Wild rice, or rice cultivatipii, is its favourite haunt, although it is found wherever there is low cover by the waterside, and it shifts about the country a good deal in order to find these desirable conditions. It swims and runs on aquatic plants like the little crake, and dives readily if pressed ; but it is shyer, and comes out less into the open, keeping more to swampy places than the open water itself. It is a sociable bird, several being usually found near together, and is also rather noisy, the voice being, according to Hume " a single note, repeated slowly at first, and then several times in rapid succession, winding up with a single and somewhat sharper note in a different tone, as if the bird was glad that the performance was over." This call is chiefly heard during the breeding-season. In feeding this species is less exclusively insectivorous than the little crake, taking wild rice and other seeds freely, as well as greenstuff. The nest is well concealed among rushes, wild rice, or marsh grass, and is made of that sort of vegetation. The eggs number about half a dozen, and have faint but thick dark frecklings on a greenish-drab ground. Whity-brown Crake. * Poliolimnas cinereus (Brit. Mus. Cat. Birds, vol. xxiii). This small crake, considerably less in size than a snipe, is recognizable among its kind by its very plain colouring of light brown, shaded with grey in front, above, and white below ; the legs are green. The young have none of the grey shade about the head. * Porzana cinerea on plate. no INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS The whity-brown crake is a bird of the Far East, ranging from the Malay Peninsula east even to the islands of the Pacific. In its Malayan haunts it has been observed to prefer cultivated land to the wilds, and is very numerous in autumn in the Singa- pore paddy-fields, especially in those richly manured v\nth urban refuse. Hume figured it along with the Malayan banded crake owing to its having been supposed to have occurred in Nepal, a mistaken idea based on a wrong identification, for which he was not responsible, and which he discovered after the .bird had been drawn. Corncrake. Crex i^ratcnsis. The common corncrake or landrail of Europe, which ranges east to Central Asia, and is a great wanderer in spite of its ordinary reluctance to fly when disturbed, is nevertheless very rare in India, its usual winter quarters being in Africa. It has, however, been reported from our area, and was actually once obtained in Gilgit in early October, so that it is worth mentioning that it is rather larger than a quail, with a short bill, and chestnut wings contrasting conspicuously with its streaky-brown upper- parts. It shows the barring on the sides so usual in rails, but the darker bars are only light brown ; the rest of the under-parts are plain light brown, the breast and cheeks being grey in the summer dress. This is the only rail really esteemed in England, being very fat and good eating, though several of the family are habitu- ally shot in America and on the Continent. The peculiar double call, well rendered by Bechstein as " arrp, schnarrj]," is very characteristic of the bird in its summer haunts, but is not likely to be heard in India. Ruddy Crake. * Amaurornis fitscus. This little crake, about the size of a quail, resembles the Malayan banded crake in having red legs and to some extent in colour, being chestnut on the face, neck and under-parts, but * Porzana on plate. < < 'uti;-J5L'ii-*'.vl. Gallus ferrugineus. Jungli moorghi, Hindustani. " Just like a bantam " is the verdict generally passed on the appearance of honest chanticleer in his wild state, whether the observer be an Anglo-Indian shikari or a lady visiting the London Zoo ; and the comparison is apt enough on the whole, for red jungle- fowl, which are simply wild common fowls, have the red-and-black colour in the cock and partridge-brown in the hen, so familiar in many bantams, and are of noticeably small size compared with most tame breeds. They are over bantam weight, however, cocks averaging about two pounds and hens about half that ; and the tail, which is very long in the cock, is carried trailing, not cocked up as in tame fowls. This applies to all kinds of jungle-fowl, none of which strut like the tame bird, and this familiar species has, at any rate in Indian specimens, a particularly slinking gait. Burmese birds have much more the appearance of tame poultry than the Western ones, and are said to be easier to tame ; so, unless they are domestic birds run wild, it is probably this particular sub- species that was the ancestor of our farmyard fowls. To anyone who wants jungle-fowl alive, and wishes to make sure of getting the absolutely real thing, however, I recommend the Indian race, which is characterized by having the ear-lobe (the little skinny flap below the ear) white, and the face flesh- colour, contrasting with the scarlet comb and wattles ; the slate- coloured legs are also peculiarly fine. Burmese birds have all the bare skin of the head of the same red, and are certainly not so scared-looking or wild in behaviour, while slightly coarser in form. Of course wherever tame fowls are kept there is a great liability to intermixture with their wild ancestors, so that ill-bred "jungle- fowl " may be expected to turn up anywhere. The fowl also runs wild very readily in the tropics, so that it is really uncertain what its eastern limits are. It does not occur west of India, nor in the south of India itself, neither does it ascend the hills for more than 5,000 feet, and only goes to that level in summer. In the foot-hills it is particularly common, and, generally speaking, 172 INDIAN SPORTING BIEDS it affects hilly country, so long as water is accessible and there is plenty of bamboo or tree-jungle, for it is essentially a woodland bird, though it will come out into the open where there is cultiva- tion in order to feed on the grain. Many of course never see grain all their lives, and live entirely on wild seeds, herbage, insects, &c. In Burma jungle-fowl are common both in the hills and plains, and extend into Tenasserim and Sumatra. Even if the Burmese and Malayan birds are truly wild, I quite agree with Hume that the genuine aboriginal wildness of the red jungle-fowl found in the East Indies beyond Sumatra is very doubtful. The very distinct green jungle-fowl (Gallus varius) ranges from Java to Flores, and looking to the distribution of jungle-fowl and similar birds generally, it is very unlikely that the red species originally lived alongside this bird. However, to consider more practical matters. This jungle-fowl may be looked for anywhere in the limits above specified if the country is suitable ; it avoids alike deserts and high cultivation, and is generally absent from alluvial land, though quite common in the Sundarbans. Here, however, it is suspected of being an introduced bird, as it certainly is on the Cocos. The fowl since its domestication by man has added no new note to its vocabulary : cackle, cluck and crow were its original language. But whereas the tame cock is always credited with saying "cock-a-doodle-doo," the wild bird's call is better ren- dered " cock-a-doodle-don't," given in a shrill, aggressive falsetto. Anyone who has heard a bantam crow knows exactly what I mean* for the notes of bantam and wild cock are indistinguishable. Like a bantam-cock, also, the wild bird will live quite happily with a single hen, though this is not universal, and harems are often found ; no doubtj as too often with his betters, polygamy is simply a matter of opportunity with chanticleer, though even in the tame state it is often obvious that he has a particular affec- tion for one hen, as was noticed by Chaucer in his " Nonnes Priestes Tale." Jungle-fowl of this species particularly affect sal jungle where it exists, and in India are seldom found away from it ; they roost on trees at night, and take to them in any case rather more readily than pheasants. Their flight is also much like BED JUNGLE-FOWL 173 that of pheasants, so that they afford very similar shooting if they can be driven ; but they will not rise if they can help it, and in thick- cover you cannot even see them as a rule without a dog to put them up. They will readily answer an imitation of their crow — at least I found it so the only time I tried ; and anyone can practise on a bantam-cock, which will probably attack them when he understands the insult ! Jungle-fowl themselves are exceedingly pugnacious, and have regular fighting-places in the jungle ; the duels are sometimes to the death, for the birds have enormous spurs. When chal- lenging, or courting a hen, the wild cock erects his tail like a tame one. After the breeding-season, which may be at any time during the first half of the year, but in the north at any rate only during the second quarter, the cock goes into un- dress, his flaming frill of hackles giving place to a sober short collar of black, and, as he loses his long tail " sickles " at the same time, he hardly looks like the same bird. Young cocks begin to show the male feathering long before they are full sized, and so are easily distinguishable from their sisters. In the autumn these yearling young birds are fat and particularly good eating. The jungle-hen lays on the ground in thickets, the nest being a mere scrape among dead leaves as a rule, but some make up a nest of hay and stalks, &c. About half a dozen eggs are the usual clutch, and they are cream-coloured and of course smaller than a tame hen's. The chicks are striped with chocolate and cream on a brown ground ; the mother looks after them with the greatest care and devoted courage. Naturally so widespread a bird as this has many names, mostly signifying the same as the English — wild fowl; Bon-hoTira in Bengali ; Ayam-utan in the Malay States ; Tau-hyet in Burma ; Natsii-pia among the Bhutias ; PazoJc-tchi with the Lepchas ; and Beer-seem among the Kols. 174 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS Grey Jui\glc-fowl. Gallus sonnerati. Ran-komhadi, Mahratta. The grey jungle-fowl, which takes in the south of India the place occupied by the red species in the north, is so dis- tinct from this that a single feather would in many cases identify it. The cock is grey, the feathers both above and below being narrow, pointed, and with white shafts. The neck- feathers have bright yellow tips, and there is a- patch of orange on the wing, these yellow or orange tips being solid, not split up into barbs hke the rest of the feathers. In some individuals the tips of the neck-feathers are white instead of yellow. Those interested in fly-fishing probably already know this jungle-cock's hackle by sight, as it is one of the standard feathers for fly-dressing. After breeding they are replaced for a time by an undress collar of sooty black, and in young cocks this black neck is the first sign of masculine plumage to appear, so that in a flock they may easily be known from hens, whose necks are yellowish, though not so bright as the distinct yellow and black seen in the neck of the red jungle-ben. In her upper plumage generally, however, the grey jungle- hen is much like the red, being of a similar brown, but underneath she is very different — pure white, regularly edged on each feather with black. To those who know tame poultry she may well be called to mind as a bird with a Brown Leghorn hen's plumage above, and a Silver Wyandotte's below. Cocks have red legs, and hens and young birds yellow. In weight this species averages a few ounces more than the last, and it is more strongly built, but it seems to be far more timid and less plucky in disposition, although now and then found fighting furiously. So wary is it, and such a runner, that it affords but little sport unless it can be driven when work- ing the smaller sholas in the Nilgiris, where it is a well-known bird — in fact, it is common all through the hill ranges of Southern India, and ranges occasionally as high as seven thousand feet. It likes thin rather than thick jungle, and is especially attracted when bamboo or the strobilanthes under- ' ;■/ I ''I fi # oc i LU IfM z /■ *^ a * o /•• CO ■« " -i^r. ' ' w*'";. CO m' u i» _J » _J 1 ■ < o .^ ^i^wjp- GREY JUNGLE-FOWL 175 growth is seeding. In the rains it spends a good deal of time in the trees even by day, and always roosts there. It is not nearly so sociable as the red jungle-fowl ; a party will only consist of an old pair and their young, and old cocks, which are particularly wary, are often found alone. The note is just as characteristic in this species as the plumage ; the crow is difficult to recognize as such at first, until one observes the deliberateness and periodicity of its production. I can only describe and imitate it by putting in words how it struck me when I at last caught a captive specimen in the act of challenging : " Oh lor' ! what a cac-kle !" Once known, how- ever, it can be recognized at a long distance ; but the birds- only crow when in full feather, i.e., from October to May. The cackle of the cock is more easily compared to that of the red jungle-fowl ; it seems to correspond to the last two notes of the familiar " tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-auk " of agitated poultry, and sounds like " tooruk, tooruk," pronounced in a harsh tone. The hen is rarely heard, but is said to be voluble when she does call, uttering a hoarse note like " uk-a-uk-a-uk " very rapidly, no doubt very like the cock's alarm-calls. On the western face of the Nilgiris these birds breed during the last quarter of the year, but the time is different in different localities, and somewhere or other they may be found nesting in almost any month. The eggs incline to be more numerous than those of the northern jungle-fowl, and are far more variable, being either short, with a coarse pitted glossy shell of rich buff, or long, fine-shelled and pale creamy, or some type between these, often brown-speckled. They have bred in captivity in England pretty freely, and in one case were crossed freely with game bantams, the resulting hybrids breeding freely every way. The same experimenter who bred these also bred the pure birds and turned them out in the woods, but found them too quickly destroyed by foxes to render the process worth keeping up ; but he mentioned that they got up wilder than the pheasants, and afforded better sport, being quicker and more difficult to hit. Davison, who was much impressed by what he believed to be the peaceful disposition of the species, says that they would not 176 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS breed in captivity (in India), and cocks and hens would live together in peace ; no doubt this was simply because his birds never got into breeding form. Personally, from what I have seen of captive birds, I should never dream of letting two cocks be together along with hens. The ranges of the two species of Indian jungle-fowl meet in places, and in a bit of sal jungle near Panchmarhi the red bird is found in the middle of territory occupied by the present kind. Jerdon once shot a hybrid at one of the meeting points — on the Godavari where it joins the Indravati — so that it is as well to mention, for the better recogni- tion of such, that the peculiar horny spangles of the grey "bird's hackle are lost in the cross, but that the characteristic light shafts to the plumage of the cock and light centres to the hen's breast feathers show up very distinctly ; at least that was the case with a pair of hybrids bred between a Sonnerat or grey cock and a mongrel bantam hen in the London Zoo in 1913. The cock hybrid bird's crow was also distinct, in four syllables, " cock-a-doo-doo." In general appearance he was very like a mongrel reddish bantam, but had the breast reddish as well as the back, and no grey anywhere, this being, so to speak, over- laid with orange-red. Ceylon Junglc-fow^l. Gallus lafayettii."^ Well kiikula, Cingalese. Even if it were not confined to Ceylon, and the only species of jungle-fowl found in that island, there would be no difficulty in distinguishing the Ceylon jungle-fowl. The cock's plumage, red below as well as above, and with the same narrow feathers, glassy-lustred everywhere, is quite distinct from that of either of the mainland species, to say nothing of the yellow patch in the middle of the red of his comb. The hen, like the cock, shows her distinction from the red jungle-fowl of the north in her under plumage chiefly ; this, instead of the fawn-colour found in the hen of the red jungle- fowl, is black-and-white, not in the form of white centres and * stanletji on plate. CALLUS STANLEYl CEYLON JUNGLE-FOWL 177 black edcres to the feathers as in the hen grey jungle-fowl, but irregularly mottled and intermixed with brown. Her comb is particularly small even for a wild hen's, and her face feathered like a partridge's, not bare as in the hen of the mainland jungle- fowl. Young cocks can be distinguished from hens by being more reddish on the brown upper parts and having only black and i)rown below, with no white. The voice of this jungle-fowl is quite as distinct from that of the two mainland birds as his plumage is, if the words "George Joyce" or "John Joyce," the renderings given of it, are at all correct. A bird in the London Zoo, believed to be a hybrid Ceylon common fowl, crowed in three syllables " cock- a-doo." Hybrids between the jungle-fowl and tame poultry are liable to occur, as the wild bird sometimes crosses with village hens, being able to overcome their consorts ; so the characteristic points of yellow-patched comb and glazed lower plumage should be borne in mind in determining the characteristics of a genuine bird. Many tame cocks of a red colour — if not most, in places where poultry breed anyhow — have reddish-brown instead of black breasts, but on examination it will be seen that the feathering here is ordinary, not glazed like that of the upper parts, so that there is no reason to believe that such birds have a cross of the Ceylon wild fowl. Similarly, the grey domestic fowls, which are also common, are never marked in detail like the grey Sonnerat cock, nor have they his peculiar pointed feathering. Hybrids with the Ceylon jungle-fowl and common fowl, by the way, have been proved fertile, with one of the parents at least. In Ceylon this bird is very generally distributed in all jungly portions, but favours low rather than high ground in the north, and in the south is scarcer and more a bird of the hills. It likes a dry soil and scrub-jungle, especially of thorn and bamboo. The cocks are far more often seen than the hens, though no doubt the inconspicuousness of the latter has a good deal to do with this ; but in any case they are shyer in disposition. More than one 12 178 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS hen and brood often associate, and flocks of these jungle-fowl may sometimes be seen feeding on cultivated land, but on the whole the species, like the grey jungle-fowl, seems to be more shy and unsociable than the red bird of the north. It also resembles the grey jungle-cock in taking a good deal to trees in wet weather, and in its fondness for Strobilanthes seed, the " nilloo " of Ceylon, on which the bird feeds so greedily that it seems to become stupefied, being a plant of this genus. There is a point of affinity with the red jungle-fowl, however, not only in the colour of the male of this bird, but in his habit of flapping his wings before he crows ; this, as far as I have seen, the grey bird does not do, but in this species, as in the red jungle-cock and his tame descendants, the habit must be very pronounced, for shooters can and do decoy the cocks within shot by imitating this sound, the native doing it by striking the thigh with the slightly-curved open hand. Any other noise will cause the wary bird to run off at once. The food of this bird consists chiefly of wild seeds, but also of insects, especially of white ants. In one part of Ceylon or the other it may be found breeding at any time of the year, depending apparently on the incidence of the north-east monsoon ; it is even thought that the birds may be double-brooded, and they seem to pair. The young, even the full grown, have been seen to show great reluctance to leave their dead mother when she had been shot. The small clutch of two to four eggs is laid on the ground in a scanty nest in some thicket or at times on a decayed log, are much pale buff, and speckled finely and spotted with rusty red, like many eggs of the grey jungle-fowl, to which this species, in spite of its red colour, is probably quite as nearly related as it is to the red bird, unless it represents the ancestor of both, as seems possible from the hybrid grey and domestic specimen before-mentioned, having come out reddish below as well as above. Moreover, this hybrid, like the grey jungle-fowl, had a purple, not green, tail, and this is also the case with the Ceylon jungle-fowl. The legs of this species are also said to be j^ellow, but, Lewis Wright, in Cassell's " Book of Poultry," says, pink in the EED SPUR-FOWL 179 cock, which is far more Hkely to be correct, for the cock grey jungle-fowl has salmon-coloured legs. The female of this species is called in Cingalese Weli kikili, and the Tamil name is Kaida koli. Red Spur-fowl. Galloperdix spadicea. Chota jungli murghi, Hindustani. The scientific name "cock-partridge" and the Hindustani one, " little jungle-fowl," give a very good idea of the character of this queer little wild bantam, though it is a bantam ]ien, not a cock, which it resembles, the tail being short and hen-like, while there are no hackle-feathers. The comb is also wanting, but the eyes are surrounded with a red bare skin, and the feet and bill are also red. The hen is also not so very unlike some fowls, a light, sometimes greyish brown, more or less pencilled across with black, but the cock is of a strikingly distinct colour, being of an almost uniform chestnut throughout, though this again is much like the shade of the much-boomed '' Rhode Island Red " poultry. Although lacking the distinctive decorations of their aristo- cratic relations, the jungle-fowl, spur-fowl easily surpass them in the practical matter of armature ; the cock has usually two spurs on each leg, sometimes more, while it is a poor hen that cannot raise at least one spur on one leg, and some have two on one and one on the other. The distribution of this bird is curious ; it is scattered about here and there throughout the Indian Peninsula ; yet though it does not extend north of the Ganges in this region, it turns up again in the Oudh Tarai. It is essentially a bird of hilly and rocky jungle, and is never found in flat country or open land of any sort. It is very shy, seldom coming into cultivation, and even when its haunts are invaded always greatly prefers running to flying. It is very swift on foot, and even a dog has difficulty in putting it up ; when it does rise, it goes off with a whirr and loud cackle, and is easily shot, but not at all easily retrieved if not killed, as it goes to ground like a rabbit. In fact the best 180 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS way of getting it is to treat it like one, and shoot it running, as Hume says. It is a perching bird, roosting at night, and being fond of taking to a thick bush when put up by a dog, a refuge from which it is most difficult to dislodge it. In compensation for its extreme aversion to giving a sporting chance to the gunner, it is an excellent bird for the table, and Hume considers it best of the Indian partridge tribe. But it is hard to get many of them ; about two or three in a day's shooting is about what may be expected on the Nilgiris, where they range up to 5,000 feet, or even over. Although often in coveys of four or five, they even then do not go off all at once, but now and then, and here and there, and they are frequently found in pairs, sometimes even alone. The cackling call which re-unites a scattered flock is said to be much like that of a hen, and they are credited with a crowing call, which seems, however, to be rarely heard. Their chief food is jungle berries, seeds, and insects, but they will occasionally come into fields for grain, and they seem to need water frequently, as they are constantly to be found near it, and a thorny ravine with a stream in it is the surest locality for them. This bird is suspected of breeding twice in the year, but the only certain season is during the first six months ; the nest is on the ground, in cover, and the eggs are rather like small hens' eggs of the brown-tinted variety so much esteemed; they vary a good deal in shade, and seven or eight seems to be the maximum set, though smaller and larger numbers occur. The red spur-fowl is fairly well off for names ; if its Mahratta title, kokatii, does describe its call well, it certainly must have a note that can be fairly called a crow. The Deccan Mahrattas, however, call it Kustoor ; in Telugu it is Yerra or Jitta-kodi, and in Tamil Sarrava koli. Painted Spur-fowl. Galloperdix lunulatus. Askal, Orissa. The white- spotted cock of the painted spur-fowl is a very pretty and distinct-looking bird, as far as the plumage goes, but the absence of the bright red colouring of the bill and PAINTED SPUR-FOWL 181 feet, which are dull blackish, and the very faint indication of red round the eye, make the dull, plain, brown hen a very ordinary looking creature ; her only noticeable point of colour is the chestnut face. The ground-colour of the cock's plumage is chestnut above for the most part, but the crown and shoulders are glossy green- black ; on the buff breast the spots are black instead of white, and the head and neck are all black and white. The Askal is generally seen when rocky hills are being beaten for big game, such places being its usual resorts, but they must have plenty of vegetable cover as well as stones. Even when thus forced out, the birds will only fly once, going to ground among the boulders when they have had one flight ; on the wing they look much like jungle-fowls and, unlike the last species, do not drop readily to a shot ; they resemble it, however, in their speed of foot. This also is a very local bird, and although its area of habitat is much the same as that of the red spur- fowl, it is not found in the north-west, while it extends east to Bengal, and is wanting on the coast of Malabar. Moreover, in localities where the red spur-fowl is found this species is generally wanting, and vice versa, so that on the whole their distribution does not coincide nearly so much as might be imagined from the consideration of their range as a whole. The choice of station, too, is somewhat different in the two species, since, though both love hills and thick cover, the present one is more distinctively and exclusively a rock-haunter. The call is said to be a peculiar loud chur, chur, chur, anything but fowl-like, but Jerdon, in speaking of the " fine cackhng sort of call, very fowl-Hke," attributes this to the males, so that no doubt the challenge and alarm-notes are, as one would expect, quite different. Not only is the bird very shy and hard to get, but it is not so succulent and gamey in character of flesh as the red spur-fowl. The cocks have been found in confinement to be very pugnacious, and their black legs are as well provided with spurs as are the red ones of the other species ; hens also are usually armed in the same way, with a pair of spurs or a single one. The five eggs, which may be found as early as March or as 182 INDIAN SPOKTING BIRDS late as June, are laid on the ground ; they are buff in colour. In spite of their natural shyness, 'the old birds show great boldness when accompanying chicks ; they will try to draw away pursuit by artifice, and if a chick be captured will come within a few yards. This species is well distinguished by names ; though in Telugu it shares the name Jitta-hodi with the last, it is called Kul koli in Tamil, while the Gond name is Hutha and the Uriya Kainjer. Ceylon Spur-fowl. Galloperdix bicalcarata. Haban-kukula, Cingalese. It is not only in appearance that the spur-fowls are like jungle-fowl, but in distribution, there being two in India and one in Ceylon, while there is a curious coincidence in colour, the most northern and southern species of the jungle-fowl having red plumage, while in the spur-fowl it is the red species, which alone is found in Northern India, and the present southern- most one, which have the red legs and conspicuous red skin round the eyes. As to plumage the cock of this bird is not unlike a richly coloured edition of the hen of the grey jungle-fowl, having the neck and flanks white with black edgings to the feathers, these edgings failing on the breast ; the back shows the characteristic spur-fowl chestnut. The brown plumage of the hen is rendered distinctive by the contrast of the red eye patch and extremities, otherwise she is more like the hen of the painted than of the red species — another coincidence with the jungle-fowl, in which it will be remembered the hen of the Ceylon species is more like the grey than the red jungle-fowl hen. The white spots on the cock's wings also recall the markings of the painted spur- fowl. The Ceylon spur-fowl makes itself well known wherever found by its cackling call, the notes being on an ascending scale, and beginning at about 6 o'clock in the morning ; but as it is a decided ventriloquist, very swift-footed, and an adept at taking cover, hearing it is one thing and getting a shot at it another. COMMON OR WHITE-CRESTED KALIJ 183 It especially affects hills, but must always have cover, and hence its absence from the north of the island is not surprising, as the jungle there is too open for its tastes. In many places it is quite abundant, and is always found in small coveys, which, as Legge suggests, are no doubt families. The cock calls a scattered covey together by a pipe like a turkey-chick's, which changes to a louder whistle as the birds get an answer or become more confident. The cocks are very quarrelsome with each other, and, as in the other species, have several spurs, while the hens are also spurred as a rule. Layard considered this bird very good eating, and much resembling grouse ; it weighs about twelve ounces if a cock, but the hens are about three ounces lighter. The four creamy eggs have been found in February, May, July, and October ; they are laid on the ground in forest. Common or Whitc-crcstcd Kalij. *Gen)iceus albocristatus. Kalij, Hindustani. Of the narrow-crested, fowl-tailed, red-faced, black and white hill pheasants known as kalijes, the present is the best known, occupying as it does, a great range from the borders of Afghanistan to those of Nepal, and being seen near the ways and works of men more than any other pheasant. From all his relatives and from all other Indian game birds, the cock's long but skimpy white crest will distinguish him; the blue-black of his upper parts gets very rusty about the shoulders, and is diversified by white bars lower down the back ; underneath he is of a very soiled white and whity-brown, the feathers here being long and pointed, as in all these white-breasted kalijes. His whitish legs are spurred. The hen is of a type very distinctive of this group. She is crested and red-faced like the cock, and has the tail but little shorter. Her brown plumage, though with pale edges, is only really diversified by the black outer tail feathers. * Euplocamus on plate. 184 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS In its Himalayan home this kahj chiefly frequents the middle and outer ranges, and is also found in the SiwaUks, alone of all the Himalayan pheasants. In winter time it comes down near the roads and cultivation, ranging? in summer up to the haunts of the moonal and tragopan, even as high as 10,000 feet ; but, generally speaking, it may be said to inhabit an intermediate zone between these and the jungle-fowl and peafowl of the foot-hills. It always keeps near or in cover of some sort, but prefers low to high jungle, and especially haunts wooded hollows and ravines, even in the interior, where it may be found in any sort of forest ; it does not as a rule go into woods far from human habitations, even the former traces of man's occupation being an attraction to it. Yet, like that most domesticated of birds, the house sparrow, it does not bear confinement at all well ; such birds probably know or suspect man too much to be happy when in his power. Its desire for grain, which it can generally procure in human neighbourhood, especially from the droppings of domestic animals, is no doubt the great reason for this approach to the enemy of its kind, but it also, of course, feeds largely on the shoots, berries and insects that form, as it were, the standard natural food of pheasants. Although three, four, or a dozen may be found near each other, the birds are not really gregarious, and when breeding go in pairs ; moreover, the cocks are exceedingly pugnacious to each other. Their challenge, common to all the group, is a peculiar drumming made by rapidly whirring the wings. The call is a sharp tweet-tweet or whistling chuckle, given out on rising, and continued excitedly when the bird is treed by some terrestrial foe. When thus treed the kalij is far from being brought to book, for it often keeps a wary eye open, and when discovered will drop down on the wrong side of the tree for the gunner and make off. Its flight is exceedingly fast, but it travels fast on foot also, and unless it has not been worried by man, and so is fairly steady when treed, is not easy to get in any number, and so falls under the head of casual game rather than a regular sporting bird. I can find no note on its edible NEPAL KALIJ 185 qualities, but the group generally are not better eating than ordinary tame fowls. These birds breed from the Tarai to an elevation of 8,000 feet, so that it is not surprising that the eggs may be found, according to elevation, from early in April to late in June. The nest is well hidden in low cover, such as grass or fern, but is very slight as a rule. The sitting is usually nine, and the colour is some shade of buff. They are about the size of small hen's eggs. The hen sits, says Hume, for rather over three weeks, and the cock keeps with her and the brood till they are nearly full grown. The mature weight of this bird, by the way, is rather over two pounds in the cock and about half a pound less in the hen. In the North-west Himalayas the sexes are discriminated by name — Kalesiir, applying to the cock, and Kalesi to the hen, while Kolsa is the Punjabi and Chamba name for the species. As wild hybrids are very rare in India, it is worth mentioning that Hume once shot a male bird which he thought must have been a cross between this and a koklass, and Captain Fisher got one which had the head, neck, and crest of the kalij, while the back and alternate feathers of the tail were like a monal's. Nepal Kalij. *GenncBus leucomelanus. liechaho, Bhutia. It is not at all surprising that this species in Hindustani simply shares the name of Kalij with the common white-crested bird, for except that the present bird has a black crest, not quite so long and therefore not drooping, the two are practically alike, blue-black above and dirty-white below, with the rump trans- versely barred with pure white. The kalij of Nepal, however, which is not found elsewhere, and is at any rate, except, perhaps, on the extreme eastern and western ends of that kingdom, the only kind found there, is not quite so rusty-looking above as the white-crested, nor so stout and pale in the leg, nor is it quite so large in most cases. *Eux)locamus on plate. 186 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS The hen is a brown, narrow-crested, hen-tailed bird Hke the white-crested kahj hen, but it is sHghtly darker, with a shorter crest, which does not show the greyish tinge found in the crest of the hen of the other species ; but the hen kahjes of this type can hardly be separated with any readiness or certainty, at any rate by a beginner. The young cock, gets his full plumage during his first year, when about five months old ; three months' old chicks are brown with some black bars above. The Nepal kalij is much the commonest of the pheasants of its native state ; it is strictly a hill bird, with a rather limited vertical range, never going down to the Tarai region, and rarely ascending over 9,000 feet. It keeps to thick forest and is a great percher, not only roosting on trees, but being commonly met with perched in them as one makes one's vi^ay through forest, according to Dr. Scully. It may be, however, that the birds seen so much aloft have simply " treed " through alarm in many cases. When approached, Dr. Scully says, they fly rapidly down and run off. He found the best plan to shoot them was" to wait, in winter, when the birds come down to the foot of the hills near the trees to which they resort to roost, though occasionally a shot could be got at one as it crossed a path. He found the birds stood captivity well, and he reared chicks to maturity, which conflicts with what others say about the difhculty of keeping the pheasants of this group. But in these matters a great deal must be allowed for skill, and Dr. Scully, as a medical man, would naturally bring more intelligence to his task than the ordinary " man in the street " who is generally a hopeless bungler with live stock, even if he is interested in them from a sportmg or natural history point of view, unless he has had some experience with tame things. The birds usually go in pairs or small parties up to ten in number. All that is known about the breeding is that a chick so young as to measure only two inches in the closed wing, is recorded by Scully as captured in June ; it was rufous brown on the head and dirty buff below, with no stripes apparently. BLACK-BACKED KALIJ 187 Black-backed Kalij. *Gennaus melanonotiis. Muthura, Bengali. The black-backed kalij of Sikkim, although generally similar to the last two species, blue-black above and dirty white below, differs from both in having no white at all on the upper surface, not only the crest, but also the rump being blue-black continuous with the rest of the upper parts, whose silky purple seems to me particularly uniform and rich in this species. The crest, as in the last species, is not so long as in the white-crested kind ; but the bird seems to be quite as large. The weights of these kalijes, however, intergrade so that size cannot be considered of any importance in dealing with them. The hen is of the same sober brown as that of the other two, with narrow crest ; but like that of the Nepal kalij, she is rather darker altogether than the hen of the white-crested bird. The legs are described as pale horny brown, darker than those of the white-crested. This kalij extends into Bhutan on one side of its range, while on the other it encroaches on Nepal, but its characteristic home is Sikkim ; its Lepcha name is Kar-rhyak, Kirrik in Bhutan. It ranges from quite the foot of the hills up to 6,000 feet, and is common in tea gardens, or used to be, but more than a genera- tion ago Hume noted that the garden coolies used to find its nests among the tea and destroy its eggs, so that he anticipated it would become comparatively rare, especially as it was inclined to affect the outer hills which were being taken up for tea- cultivation rather than the interior. It always keeps to cover of some sort, and is just as much at home among the tea as in jungly growth ; ravines well bushed over are its favourite haunts. Gammie found it very tame in Sikkim, so that when met with feeding on the roads in morning and evening it would only walk out of the way when disturbed. During the day it shuns the sun, and seldom perches unless put up by some enemy on the ground. Human intruders it avoids * EuplocamuH on plate. 188 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS by running, or if that is impossible takes a short low flight and settles on the ground again. Its alarm note is given by Gammie as Jcoorchi, koorchi, Jcoorchi, while the challenge call is koor, koor and the fighting note waak, loaak. The same drumming with the wings as is indulged in by other kalijes is also performed by this one, and the natives, apparently with reason, regard it as a presage of rain. It is a very omnivorous bird, eating all sorts of insects, except ants, which the natives told Gammie were refused by captive birds ; beetle grubs and wild yams, and the fruits of the totney and yellow raspberry, are favourite articles of food, and grain of all sorts is readily devoured, with the shoots of nettles and even ferns. The flesh is not very good, and the bird affords little sport, being a great runner, and affecting cover so thick that even a dog can do little in it. About Darjeeling it has been noticed to be very constant to its roosting-trees and even keeps to the same bough, so that it is easily located by its accumulated droppings. It generally goes in pairs or only three or four together, and the cocks fight much in the breeding season. Although in the higher parts of its range hard-set eggs have been found at the end of July, at the other end of its zone, low down, they may be laid in March, no one seems to have seen any sort of a nest constructed, the eggs being laid in grass or under cover of bush, fern, or rocks on the ground itself. Hume never heard of more than ten eggs in a clutch, and their colour varies from pale brown to pinkish cream-colour. Purple or Horsficld's Kalij. *GenncBus horsfieldi. Dorik, Assam. Like the last species, this bird has the native name Muthura, and it is certainly allied to it, though more nearly to the next to be mentioned. It differs from the three most typical kalijes in having the underparts black with feathers of the ordinary rounded * Euplocamus on plate. \ ^'ifj^- a UJ lZ (f) cc CD JZ o CO o PURPLE OR HORSFIELD'S KALIJ 189 shape, not pointed ; from this it is often called the black-breasted kalij, a rather misleading name, as it gives the impression that the black breast contrasts with the upper surface, which is not the case. In fact, the bird is the most simply and uniformly- coloured of all our pheasants, its purple-glossed black plumage being only relieved by white bars on the lower back. The crest is long and narrow. The hen bird is very similar to the hens of the three white- breasted kalijes, both in plumage and crest ; the only special point she shows is the contrast between the reddish-brown of the central tail-feathers with the more olive-brown of the rump ; but the difference is slight, and she can hardly be picked out from the others above-mentioned, while curiously enough she has no such near resemblance in colour to the hen of the lineated pheasant next to be dealt with, a much closer ally. The purple or black-breasted kalij is a hill-bird like the group generally, and ranges from Chittagong to the Daphia hills and Eastern Bhutan, extending also to the northern parts of Arrakan and to Burma as far as Bhamo ; Southern Manipur is also within its range, but its exact limits are not very easy to determine, as interbreeding between it and other forms undoubtedly goes on. It is not so high in its range on the hills as the white-breasted kalijes, seldom going above 4,000 feet and haunting jungle at the edge of cultivation and along rivers. Except for this, its habits, like its size, show no par- ticular distinction from those of the three previous kalijes. It keeps mostly to cover, and only shows sport when hunted up with dogs, when it often takes to trees. Well-wooded hills and ravines are favourite resorts, and only a few birds are seen together, pairs being more usual, though as many as eight or even eleven birds have been seen in a party. When flushed it rises noisily, and with a shrill repeated cheep. The cocks are exceedingly pugnacious ; two have been found fighting with such fury that both were captured by hand, in a much pecked and exhausted state ; and one has been seen to stand up for some time to a red jungle-cock, which won in the end, the casus belli having been a white ant heap, on the swarming inmates of which these cantankerous birds could not 190 INDIAN SPOKTING BIRDS agree to dine in peace. The flesh of this kahj, by the way, although white, is not as good as that of the jungle-fowl ; a cock may weigh about three pounds, but is usually less. Besides insects, they feed on worms, shoots, and grain, for which they will often scratch in horse-dung. They are reported very difficult to tame, but nevertheless the species has often been brought to Europe, and has been during the time of writing represented at the London Zoo. I notice that when frightened the bird raises and spreads out his thin stiff crest horizontally, so that it is very broad and conspicuous. The eggs of this bird may be found from March to June; they are warm light brown to pale buff in tint, and strong shelled ; four have been found in a nest, which is made of dry leaves on the ground. In the Garo Hills this species is known as Durug or Dirrik. Litveated Kalij. *Gennceus lineatus. Yit, Burmese. The lineated kalij, which closely resembles the purple kalij in size, form, and even the habit of erecting and spreading out the crest, is the most westerly of the group of black-breasted, pencilled-backed pheasants which culminate in the well-known silver pheasant of our aviaries, which is a South Chinese bird. It is generally distributed over hilly country in Burma, and is sometimes called the Burmese silver pheasant, or even, as by Hume, by the very awkward name of " vermicellated " pheasant. " Grey-backed kalij " would really be the best name for it, as it is a typical kalij in size and shape, hen-tailed and narrow-crested, while the most striking point about it is the contrast between its delicate grey upper surface and black crest and under-parts. The pure white along the upper half of the centre tail-feathers is also a striking colour-point, and with the scarlet face, goes to make up a singularly handsome, if quiet-looking bird. For comparison with other races it should be noted that the grey of the back is not a solid colour, but made up of very fine * Euplocamns on plate. ^ J LINEATED KALIJ 191 pencilling of black and white lines, such as is seen on the backs of many of the males of the duck tribe, but very rarely elsewhere ; it is irregular and does not follow the edges of the feathers. The hen bird is quite like the hens of the white-breasted and purple kalijes in form, and is also brown above, but her under plumage and neck are different, as are also the outer tail-feathers, being variegated, the former with well-marked white streaks, the latter with tranverse pencillings of white on the black ground. The lineated kalij, like the purple, does not range high up, even 4,000 feet being generally higher than it cares to go, while it has no objection to sea-level if it can get suitable jungly cover and ravines or similar declivities. What it especially likes is long grass, bamboos, small trees, and brushwood, on hill- sides ; and it prefers deciduous-leaved trees to evergreen forest. On account of the steepness and treacherous character of much of the ground it frequents, it is often not easy to shoot, and is a great runner, though a dog will put it up readily enough. It has, in fact, the regular kalij habits ; it is, for instance, usually found in pairs, though broods may keep together. The cock challenges by whirring with his wings ; the alarm-note is a whistled yit, whence no doubt the native name in Burmese. In Arrakanese the name is Bak, in Karen Phugyk, while the Talain name is Synklouk. It is a mixed feeder, but has a special liking for ants, black as well as white, and for the figs of the peepul ; in places where it can get the succulent shoot of a certain orchid to feed upon it can do without water for some time, but usually likes to be near it, drinking at about 10 a.m. In some localities it avoids cultivation altogether, in others it will come freely out into rice fields to obtain grain. It also feeds on young leaves and grass. One curious habit, observed by Colonel Bingham, is that it often comes into clearings on bright moonlight nights, a most curious trait in a pheasant or any nearly allied bird. Chicks are said to be hard to rear, but the species has often been brought to Europe, and, hke the purple, was on view at the London Zoo at the time of writing. It has hybridized in captivity with the Chinese silver pheasant, the resulting hybrid being practically identical with 192 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS the doubtful form known as Anderson's silver pheasant {Genncdus andersoni). Owing also to hybridism in the wild state, both with the purple kalij and silver pheasant, the limits of this bird are hard to fix. Eggs of the lineated kalij may be found from March to May, in a hollow scratched out among dry leaves or scratched in the ground and lined with such leaves, but are generally well hidden. The eggs are seldom more than eight and are of a buff or stone colour with a pinkish tinge. Silver Pheasant. Gennmiis nycthemerus. The lovely silver pheasant, for the last century domesticated at home, is not known as a wild bird in India, but as he lives as near as South China, and his hybrid offspring infest our border- ing states, to the great bewilderment of sportsmen and naturalists, he comes into the tangled tale of the pencilled-backed kalijes. The cock silver pheasant has a folded tail, but it is long, and the top feathers are so long and arched that the general effect looks quite different from that of the tail of other kalijes. These top feathers are pure white, and white is the ground colour of the rest of the plumage except for the blue-black underparts and crest. The black pencilling is regular, but extremely fine and inconspicuous except on the wings and side tail-feathers. The crest droops as in the white-crested or common kalij, but is far fuller than in that or any other species. The legs are red as well as the face in both sexes. The hen has a short crest, hardly noticeable, and black ; and perfectly plain brown plumage, the only markings being irregular black and white pencilling on the outside tail feathers. Young birds have this pencilling on the breast, and the cock, which does not get his full colour till the second year, goes through a most peculiar series of changes before and while moulting into it, the feathers appearing to change colour without a moult to some extent. A maturing specimen of this sex might easily be referred to half a dozen species at various times, as species have been reckoned in this group. The form known as Anderson's silver pheasant {Gennceus ^ '^^ i"'- ^ <^ -^ i >• ^ FIRE-BACK PHEASANT 193 andersoni) from the Kachin Hills and the Ruby Mines, seems simply to be a hybrid between this bird and the lineated kalij ; bat the bird figured by Hume as Crawford's silver pheasant {EiLplocamus andersoni on plate) seems to me the same bird with a further cross of the lineated. As further intermediate forms occur between these half-silver pheasants and the purple kalij, and as that bird also undoubtedly grades into the lineated kalij where their ranges approach, through more interbreeding, it will be seen that it is very difficult to draw any lines between all these black-breasted kalijes, silvered or plain ; and we may ultimately have to come to the astonishing conclusion that they are all of the same species, of which the type will have to be the Chinese silver pheasant, as the oldest kind known. Firc-back Pheasant. *Lophura rufa. Mooah-mooah, Malay. The splendid fire-back pheasant, distinguished from all other members of the kalij group, to which it belongs, by its sky-blue face, high bushy crest, and large size, which even in the hen goes up to three and a half pounds and in the cock may reach five, is only found in Southern Tenasserim, being one of the many Malay forms which just penetrate our dominions in that direction. Its eastern limit is Sumatra, an allied but distinct species replacing it in Borneo. Living where it does, this species is not likely to be confused with the Himalayan monal, also a big pheasant with a blue face, but utterly different in every other way. The cock fire-back, in addition to the splendid patch of colour which gives him his name, is remarkable for the lustrous navy-blue of his plumage, set off by white flank-splashes and the white centre-feathers of the curved but folded and hen-like tail, and the coral-red legs, armed with great white spurs. The hen is quite as distinct in her way, on account of her bright foxy-red plumage, marked with black and white below ; her legs are red like the cock's, whereas those of the Bornean fire-back are white in both sexes. * Euplocamits vieilloti on plate. 13 194 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS Her crest is quite well developed, though not so large as the cock's. ' In Tenasserim, Davidson found this bird associating in small parties, consisting of a male with his harem, though solitary' males sometimes occurred ; they always kept to the cover of the evergreen forests, and scratched a good deal. Their food was the usual mixed diet of pheasants — leaves, berries, and insects. When alarmed, the covey ran off together, but could be put up by a dog, when they would fly strongly for a couple of hundred yards and then settle and begin to run again. The cocks frequently challenged in the usual manner of the group, by whirring with their wings ; and that they are as wantonly vicious in their wild state as they are in captivity was proved by Davison having seen one repeatedly drive a cock argus from his bachelor sanctum ; the poor bird, though he would come back at the bully's whirring challenge, being naturally afraid to stand up to his formidably armed and active antagonist. Besides the wing-buzzing, the cocks have a vocal alarm-note, which Davison compares to that of the big black-backed squirrel (Sciurus bicolor), that fine fellow as big as a cat which is so conspicuous in the forests ; the heiis also have the same sharp cry. The egg is known to be buff, and very like some hen's eggs, as these birds have laid in captivity ; but no eggs seem to have been taken in the wild state, although the breeding-season appears to be known, and is said to be in the monsoon. White Eared-Pheasant. Crossoptilum tihetanum. This beautiful large white pheasant, with its snowy loose plumage so well set off by its purple-glossed tail and red face and legs, has never been actually taken in British territory, though it is suspected of occurring on some of the Bhutan passes. It is really a Tibetan and Chinese bird, and Hume was induced to figure it chiefly in order to reproduce a copy of the figure of it given by Hodgson, who described it in 1838, and to quote his description, whiah was buried in one of the earlier volumes of the Asiatic Society's Journal. O _1 uJ r^LD O o _J Q_ ID uJ KOKLASS PHEASANT 195 There is no need to repeat this description, as the bird is so distinct that if it does turn up in British territory it cannot be mistaken for anything else ; but in it Hodgson seems to have been curiously mistaken in two points. He says, first, nothing at all about the curious erect white ear-tufts which the bird has like the few other members of the Crossoptilum group — though it must be admitted that they are shortest in this species — nor does his drawing show them. He also describes the bird's tail as " broadly convex, without any sign of the galline compression and curve," the fact being that in all these eared pheasants the tail is folded and fowl-like, with the top feathers curved, and even looser-webbed than the rest. Hodgson's bird was got from a Nepalese envoy who had been to Pekin, but it is now too late to ask where he got it ! In China, according to Pere David, this bird inhabits bushy localities and is very sedentary and sociable, even during the breeding-season. Being poor eating, and respected by native superstition, it has a better chance of survival than its near relative, the only one usually seen in Europe, the brown crossoptilum (C. mantcliuricum) which he regards as in danger of extinction, owing to persecution and the cutting down of the forests. The white crossoptilum has been exhibited at the London Zoo, but I never saw but the one specimen. Koklass Pheasant, Pucrasia macrolopha. KoMas, Hindustani. Sometimes called the Pukras, from another native name Pokras, this pheasant is very distinct in type from all our other species ; the tail, though short for a pheasant, is pointed, and the head provided with a long crest, in three portions, for only the central part grows from the crown, two longer tufts proceed- ing from the sides of the head, which is deep green in colour except for the central crest, which is pale brown. Just where the head joins the neck there is a long oblique white spot on each side. The colour of the body-plumage, which is long and pointed,. 196 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS and longitudinally streaked for the most part, varies much accord- ing to locality, and several species used to be distinguished on this account, though so much variability occurs that they are not very tenable. Speaking generally, the koklass is a grey-bodied bird, with the centre of the under-parts chestnut, reaching right up to the neck in front, and sometimes extending backwards on it. The grey feathers are streaked with black, and either of these colours may predominate at the expense of the others, while the characters may be combined in different ways. The birds range nearly all along the Himalayas, and the local varia- tions may be thus summed up. I In the North-west, where the typical macrolopha is the form found, there is as much grey as black on the body-feathers. In Nepalese birds, the so-called P. nepalensis, which is figured separately by Hume, though he himself was inclined to treat them all as one species, the body-feathers have more black than grey, so that the bird looks much darker. In Kashmir birds, which have been distinguished as P. biddulphi, the peculiarity consists in an extension of the chestnut colour on the sides of the neck. Even in the "Fauna of British India" the P. castanea of Kafir- istan, Yassin, Chitral, and Swat, which is very little known, is. kept distinct, and I followed this in my own book on Indian game-birds ; but it really seems rather absurd to keep it separate, its only distinction being the great exaggeration of the chestnut round the neck and along the flanks. The hens show very much less difference, though the Nepalese specimens run to a good deal of chestnut in the tail ; there is nothing about their brown variegated plumage to attract attention, except the very pointed shape of the feathers all over, which is common to both sexes of the koklass, as well as the pointed tail. The hens have a very short blunt crest, and are not spurred like the cocks, which also have longer legs. Another noticeable and characteristic point about koklass is that they have no bare skin about the face like most pheasants, and that their wings are unusually long and pointed for pheasants, more like a dove's, in fact. Connected with this is the great speed in flight, which exceeds that of any of our other ■pheasants. MfA ^^ ? CO i^\--> r •< ' '" ' '* /■ '-i J 3 ^ = . CL tv/ KOKLASS PHEASANT 197 The cocks weigh from about two to nearly three pounds, the hens up to two, the Nepal race being smaller than the typical one. The propensity of naturalists for species-niggling forces one to waste a good deal of space in describing variations ; coming to more practical points, the koklass is generally reckoned the best bird both for shooting and for eating of all its tribe in India; indeed, Hume says that he "would rather have a good day after koklass in the middle of November, in some little wooded saucer-like valley or depression at 7,000 or 8,000 feet in the Himalayas, where two or three coveys have been marked by one's shikaris, than after any other bird in any other place." Besides such places as are here indicated, koklass, he says, also especially affect " some place in a gorge where a horizontal plateau is thrown out inside the gorge." The birds keep much to the same place, though moving up and down during the day, and should be worked with well-trained dogs and several beaters. The birds keep to the wooded parts of the hills, and range up as far as these extend, but do not go lower than about 3,000 feet, preferring the lower to the higher elevations, and liking sloping ground and ravines, especially when the trees are oaks. They are found singly and in pairs as well as in coveys, the last being family parties ; the pairs are generally to be found near each other. In places where there is little underbrush, they will run before rising, but otherwise get on the wing, though not till closely approached and forced to rise. Their very rapid flight down hill calls for good shooting ; dogs will often put them up into trees, but when disturbed by man they will fly far and pitch on the ground, where they sometimes roost, though their general habit is to roost in trees. They sometimes croak or chuckle when rising, w'hence no doubt the name of Koak in Kulu ; in Kashmir they are called Plas. The Koklass or Pokras note, preceded by a kok kok, is the crow, and in dark shady woods in the interior they will answer any loud noise with it, though it is usually a morning and even- ing call. They may be found scratching for insects in rhododendron 198 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS covert, and also eat moss, seeds, and flowers, and especially buds and leaves, but not grain ; they are not easy subjects for cap- tivity, and are seldom kept, whence no doubt it comes that there is, apparently, no description of the cock's display extant, They do not breed lower than 5,000 feet, but may do so at twice that elevation, laying, with practically no preparation, on the ground under a rock or root, or in cover, buff eggs which fall into two types, the finely and uniformly speckled or the boldly blotched, the markings in both cases being reddish-brown ; the eggs also vary much in size, but average about two inches long. Some are much like those of our British black-game. Nine is the usual number, and May the usual laying month. Both cock and hen keep with the brood, and the young cocks get their colour in the first season, the young being well grown by September. Cheer Pheasant. *Catreus wallichi. Cheer, Hindustani, The Cheer Pheasant, although his colours have none of that brilliancy which one associates witli pheasants, especially those with the typical long pointed tail which he exhibits in perfec- tion, having this appendage sometimes two feet long, is never- theless a very recognizable bird, not only among our Indian game-birds, but anywhere, for he is the only pheasant known which combines a long pointed tail with a crest also long and pointed ; and the female, though shorter in both tail and crest, yet has them enough developed to be recognizable. Although there is plenty of difference in detail between the cock and hen Cheer Pheasants, their general appearance is far more alike than that of the two sexes of pheasants in general, both showing black, grey, white, buff, and brown in their plumage ; the most noticeable differences are at the two ends, the cock having a plain dirty-white neck below his drab cap, while the hen, with the same head colouring, has the neck below the throat more black than white, though the colours are mixed ; her tail, also, * PJiasianus on plate. CHEER PHEASANT 199 though exhibiting the same colours as the male's, is not so distinctly marked, the cock's tail being boldly banded with black- and-tan on a bright buff ground, and forming a very noticeable feature in his appearance. Cock Cheer are much larger than hens, weighing about three pounds and often more, while the hens weigh two to two and a half; they look about as big as our cock pheasants at home, and this is the only one of our common hill pheasants, rightly so-called or not, which will strike anyone as closely like the home bird, in spite of its dull colour. Its note, however, is, like its plumage, very unlike the common pheasant's, being a sort of song, rendered by Wilson as " chii'-a-pir, chir-a-pir, chir chir, chirwa, chinva" ; but the tune varies, and there is a good deal of it to be heard, for hens crow as well as cocks, and in dull weather at any time in the day, though the usual calling-time is daybreak and dusk. The cocks have spurs, and presumably they fight, for they are excessively spiteful in their demeanour to people when in captivity — more so, I think, than any other species ; and they have considerable power in their strong bills, which they use for grubbing up roots, which are their favourite food, though they also partake of the other usual articles of pheasant diet, with the exception of herbage, for which they do not care. Although distributed all along the Himalayas — to which range it is confined — and a common bird, the cheer is not to be found everywhere, its requirements being somewhat special. Although, like our pheasants generally, it ascends the hills in hot weather and descends in winter, it does not go above 10,000 feet or come down below 4,000, nor go outside the wooded regions. Even here Cheer are local, and the special grounds for them are, according to Hume, " the Dangs or precipitous places, so common in many parts of the interior ; not vast bare cliffs, but a whole congeries of little cliffs one above the other, each perhaps from fifteen to thirty feet high, broken up by ledges, on which a man could barely walk, but thickly set with grass and bushes, and out of which grow up stunted trees, and from which hang down curious skeins of grey roots and mighty garlands of creepers." By waiting at the foot of such a place good shots may be got as the birds are driven down from above, but they come 200 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS down extremely fast, apparently closing their wings and steering by their tails; while if hit and not killed they will run for miles at times. In thin tree-growth on the hillside they are hard to get unless bayed by dogs, at which, iu out-of-the-way places, says Hume, they will chuckle or crow, with erected feathers, from the bough they have taken to, till they can be potted. Possibly this antipathy to dogs, like their fearless spitefulness toman when con- fined, indicates that they assist each other agamst vermin, for they are most companionable birds, except in the breeding-season, associating in coveys of up to fifteen in number, and these lots remaining about the same favourite place from one year's end to another, even if some' are shot. They are great runners and skulkers when the grass is long and gives them a chance, and do not fly far at a time. In fact, they are essentially ground-birds, and seldom even roost on trees, but •' jug " like partridges on the ground. Cheer generally breed between 4,000 and 8,000 feet, prefer- ably in May and at the foot of one of their favourite " Dangs" scratching a slight hole and laying small eggs for their size, not larger than a common fowl's, and dirty-white or pale- greyish, with a few rusty spots in most cases. The cock as well as the hen looks after the brood. The native name expressing the characteristic note is the most widely used, but in the hills north of Mussoorie is replaced by Bunchil or Herril, while in Chamba and Kullu Chaiiian is this bird's title. Stone's Pheasant. PJtasicaiHs elegans. Stone's pheasant is one of the numerous subspecies of our common European pheasant (P. coJchicus), and the hen is not noticeably distinct from the female of that bird ; the cock also is likely to be considered the same on a casual view, but it really rather approaches the Chinese ring-necked race (P. torquatiis), having the same lavender back and patches on the wings. There is, however, no white ring round the neck, and the breast is not coppery-gold as in the common pheasant and ring-neck, but dark MKS. HUME'S PHEASANT 201 green. Thus a broad band of richly glossed dark colour runs right down the under-parts, completely separating the brassy- chestnut of the flanks. From Mrs. Hume's pheasant, the only one similar in form found with us, the present bird is distinguished at once by not having the white bars on the wing. Stone's pheasant is found at an elevation of about 5,000 feet in the Northern Shan States, as well as at Momien in Yunnan, and in Szechuen. Its habits present nothing worthy of special mention ; in Yunnan it was found frequenting grassy hills ; and it may be remarked that the pheasants of this type naturally affect grass, reeds, and scrub-jungle, not high forest. The Chinese ring-neck, which, subject to local variations, ranges from Kobdo to Canton, is the best all-round sporting bird in the world ; it is now thoroughly mixed up with the original pheasant brought by the ancients into Europe from Asia Minor, and most English pheasants show traces of intermixture with it. It has been established also in places so wide apart as Oregon, New Zealand, Samoa, and St. Helena, and is often imported alive into Calcutta, where I have known an unmated hen lay and try to hatch her eggs. Such an adaptable bird is well worthy of introduction almost anywhere, and might be tried in the Ceylon hills and in the Nilgiris. Mrs. Hume's Pheasant. Calophasis humia. Loe-nin-koi, Manipur. Anyone coming across this pheasant is likely at once to notice its resemblance to our familiar species at home, to which, indeed, it is nearly allied, though not nearly so closely as is Stone's pheasant. It may be distinguished from that bird by the two white bars on the wings and by the white edgings to the feathers of the lower back, which in some specimens conceal the dark bases, so that these would show a conspicuous white patch in that region which would be very noticeable w'hen the bird was on the wing. Such white-backed specimens are to be found in the Ruby Mines district in Burma, and some writers consider them as a 202 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS distinguishable species, named Calophasis hurmaniais. The typical form with the lower back having a variegated colouring of steel-blue with white feather-borders is the Manipur bird, and it is this that Hume discovered and named after his wife — a way of commemorating oneself (by giving the lady's married surname instead of her Christian name), which is, unfortunately, not unique in the annals of descriptive ornithology. This was in 1881, and Hume could only get two specimens, both of them males ; but though few have since come to hand, the female is now known, and the Shan States, as well as Burma, have been added to the range of the species. The hen, in her brown mottled plumage, has nothing dis- tinctive about her appearance but the chestnut white-tipped outer tail-feathers, and fortunately these are just what would be conspicuous in flight ; her tail is shorter than that of an English hen pheasant, though the cock's is quite up to the usual cock-pheasant's standard of length, but grey in ground colour instead of the olive-brown seen in the home cock-pheasant's tail. In Manipur these birds are found inhabiting hill-forests, and range from 2,500 to 8,000 feet ; they extend, according to Hume, " right through the Kamhow territory into Eastern Looshai, and North-west Independent Burma." The Burmese and Shan States race, which was described by Oates as distinct in 1898, seems to be similar in habits, also frequenting wooded hills. Although I was the first to draw attention to the distinction between the two races, I did not, and do not now, consider them as distinct species, the characters being liable to variation; and I have always thought that the describing of a new species is an act requiring justification, not one to be proud of. As an example of the futility of species-splitting, I may men- tion that two male specimens of this pheasant in the Indian Museum, obtained respectively by Lieutenant H. H. Turner in the Chin Hills, and by Lieutenant H. Wood in Upper Burma, agreed with the Manipur form in having the rump blue with narrow white edgings. As Hume's birds were trapped, and few have seen the species wild. Lieutenant Turner's notes are worth quoting ; they appeared in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for LADY AMHERST'S PHEASANT 203 1900. He says : "I had left my camp, which was pitched about six miles from Fort White, on the evening of March 6 . . . and was returning along the road (the Fort White — Kalemyo road), when glancing down the khud I saw something grey dis- appearing in the long grass just below me. I immediately started to go after it, when I saw what appeared to me a light blue streak just disappearing. I immediately fired, but it was with faint hopes that I walked up to the spot, as not only did I think the bird had disappeared before I shot, but I had just at the moment of shooting slipped. I was, therefore, very much delighted when I saw the blue streak tumbling down the hhud below me. I immediately went after him and secured him ; as I was descending the original grey bird, which was evidently the female, got up and flew a short distance. I walked her up, and my dog again put her up ; unfortunately, owing to the thick jungle, I was unable to get a shot. Walking on, however, I put up another, whether a cock or hen I could not say, as it was already dusk. I fired, but the bird flew away, and although I believe it dropped, I could not find it. These birds, when I saw them, were feeding among the dry leaves which littered the ground. " The next evening I tried the upper side of the road and put up several (four at least) of these same birds out of some long grass on a steep hillside. I only managed to get one long shot, which was not successful. I again tried the next morning, and was successful in bagging another ; my dog put it up on our right, and flying very low through the bushes it crossed just in front of me. . . . The hill on which I obtained these specimens was between 4,000 and 5,000 feet high." Lady Amherst's Pheasant. Chrysolophus avihersticB. Seng-ky, Chinese. The striking contrast of satiny-green and white in the cock Amherst pheasant's plumage would be quite sufficient for identi- fication even without its structural peculiarities of wig or frill of long rounded feathers, and extravagant length of tail which 204 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS may reach over a yard, although the bird himself is barely as big as a hen common pheasant. The frill and long centre tail- feathers are both white marked with black, and are set off by the narrow red crest, red border to the straw-yellow rump, and red tips to the long tail-coverts ; the rest of the plumage is mostly green, but white below the breast. When displaying, the cock expands his tail and frill sideways, and always attracts attention at the Zoo when thus showing off; in fact, many people must know this bird by sight, although it is not yet, after many years' breeding in captivity, anything like so well known as its only near relative, the gold pheasant {Chrysoloplms pictus). The Amherst hen, though a plain-looking brown bird without trimmings, is strikingly marked off from our other hen pheasants by the bold cross barring of her upper plumage and neck ; she has also chestnut eyebrows and a bare livid patch round the eye. Yearling cocks may be distinguished by the whitish tint of their napes and centre tail-feathers, and green gloss on the crown. Like its ally, the gold pheasant, this is a Chinese bird, but ranges to Tibet and reaches our territory also, though this has only been known in recent years. In his " Manual of the Game Birds of India," vol. ii, published in 1809, Gates mentions that he iiad seen a skin of a bird of this species, a cock, which had been shot, either in the Myitkyina or in the Bhamo district, on the frontier between Burma and China, by one of the officers engaged in the settlement of the frontier in question. Then, in 1905, Mr. E. Comber recorded in the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society that the Society had " lately received the skin of an adult male specimen in full plumage of Lady Amherst's pheasant from Lieutenant W. W. Yon Someran, who shot it at a height of about 9,000 feet near Sadon in the Myitkyina district of Upper Burma." The donor had stated about the habits of the birds that they lived at elevations of 8,000 feet or over, and he had never seen a bird below this ; and that they appeared to be common over the frontier on the hills of the Chinese side. The habits of the bird in China are thus described by Pere David, " Lady Amherst's pheasant lives, the whole year round, in the highest jungle-covered hills of Western Szechuen, INDIAN CRIMSON TRAGOPAN 205 Yunnan, Kouycheou, and the highest hills of Eastern Tibet. It especially frequents the clumps of wild bamboos which grow at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,000 metres, and the shoots of these are its favourite food ; indeed, it is from this that its Chinese name of Seng-ky (shoot-fowl) is derived In the wild state it shows a very jealous disposition and will not allow the golden pheasant, its only possible rival, to approach the locality in which it resides ; and so one never meets those two brilliantly coloured pheasants on the same hill or in the same valley." Another clerical authority, quoted by Hume, says that Amherst pheasants, when they find springes baited with grain laid for tlieiu, are said by the Chinese to try to sweep the corn away with their huge tails so as to feed safely on it. This sounds rather a tall statement, as Hume evidently thought, but it is quite possible that the Amherst cock, one of the most irritable birds in a very peppery family, may, in his anger at being kept from coveted food by an obstruction which he fears, may play round the snare with expanded sweeping tail as he would round a hen ; for this species, like probably most birds, assumes more or less the so-called courting attitude under strong euiotion such as anger. Of course any native onlooker at this performance, if it occurs, would naturally credit the bird with an intelligent motive. If some corn were actually swept away in this manner, it would indeed be probable that the bird would learn to act intelligently in the asserted direction. The birds, as above remarked, breed freely in captivity, and their eggs are buff. Indian Crimson Tragopan. Geriornis satyra. Munal, Hindustani. The wonderfully rich plumage of the cock crimson tragopan, whose red under-parts spotted with white, and the similar speck- ling on his marbled brown back, make him look like a glorified guinea-fowl, is a certain and striking distinction of his species ; the hen is a brown bird, the plumage on close inspection being seen to be a grizzly pepper and ginger mixture, with more of the dark colour above and more of the buff below, but without 206 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS definite markings of any size ; she is quite easy to recognize, in spite of her sonihre colour and absence of any crest or bare skin round the eye. Young cocks show some red on the neck in their first year, but do not come into colour till the next. The cock is horned, crested, and dewlapped, as is always the case with tragopans ; but the crest lies flat and the light blue fleshy horns are generally concealed in it, while the dewlap is hardly visible as a rule, just showing a fold of the richest blue skin on the bare throat. The blue skin of the face is concealed by scanty black feathering; and in having the face thus feathered this species is unique among tragopans. Although, like our other well-known tragopan, this species is often called argus, it is no more an argus pheasant than it is a peacock ; indeed, it can hardly be called a pheasant at all, being, like the monal, a member of a separate group in the family, and quite as near the partridges as the pheasants proper. The tail is somewhat hen-like, not long, and slightly folded, and the general appearance is bulky and fowl- like, though the legs and toes are rather long and slender, and the bill particularly small. The bird is a large one, weighing about four pounds in the case of cocks ; the hens are noticeably smaller and do not weigh nearly three pounds. The crimson tragopan is confined to the Eastern Himalayas, seldom straying west of the Alaknanda Valley in Garhwal, in which state and in Kumaun it is known as Lungi ; it is well known as far east as Bhutan, where its names are Omo and Bap, the Lepcha name in Sikkim being Tarr liyak. It used to be common near Darjeeling. Like tragopans generally, it is a true forest bird and seldom seen, for it does not come out on to the grass slopes above the forest as the monal so frequently does ; though, like that species, it shifts its ground according to season, keeping near the limits of woodland in summer, and descending in winter as low as 6,000 feet. It likes thick cover, and is especially fond of that afforded by ringal, especially where water is at hand. It is more of a tree-bird than pheasants generally, not only taking refuge in trees from enemies and roosting on them at night, but judging from the habits of captured specimens, keeping a good deal in them at all times, and no doubt feeding on the INDIAN CRIMSON TRAGOPAN 207 buds, berries, and leaves, since leaves, especially of aromatic kinds, and wild fruit, form a portion of the food, as well as bamboo-shoots, insects, and bulbs ; though in confinement it will eat grain, it does not seem to seek it in a wild state. Although eggs have been taken in Kumaun in May, not much is on record about the breeding of this bird in the wild state, no doubt because people naturally expect such birds to nest on the ground, whereas evidence obtained from birds kept in captivity shows that they are really tree-breeders. Mr. St. Quintin, who has paid particular attention to tragopans and kept three out of the five known species, finds they require elevated nesting-sites, such as old wood pigeons' nests and plat- forms put up in trees, which they line with a few twigs. A hen of this very species even made a scanty nest of her own with spruce twigs and branches, so that in looking for tragopans' nests one's motto evidently ought to be "Excelsior." The eggs are larger than ordinary Indian fowls' eggs, and not unlike them except for a few pale dull markings of a lilac tint. They take twenty-nine days to hatch. The chicks are uniform reddish-brown above, not striped, and have the wing-feathers showing when hatched ; they perch at once, and can fly in a few days. This looks as if they might spend some of their early life aloft ; perhaps the hen feeds them, as the cock does her when courting. This same courtship of the cock is very curious ; he has two quite distinct displays, an unusual trait in any bird. The most commonly seen is a side- way one, the bird flattening himself out sideways, as it were, by expanding the feathers of one side of the body above and below, much as the common pheasant does. In this way the white spots become as conspicuous as possible, but there is no change in the face. In the full display, which is very rarely seen, the bird squats down on his heels with head erect and plumage puffed out, flaps his wings with a convulsive movement, showing off the intense red on the pinion-joints, and makes a noise like a motor-car starting. At the same time, with jerks of the head, the dewlap is let down and expands, not vertically like a turkey's, but horizontally, forming a bib as large as a lady's palm, of the most intense blue in the middle, and pure azure at the sides. 208 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS which are marked with large oval scarlet spots. The horns should be also displayed at this time, but I hardly saw them when I witnessed the display myself. This is a frontal display, but the hen never seems to be anywhere where she is wanted at the time. There appears to be usually but one hen with a cock, and he seems more gentle with her than typical pheasants. Her alarm note is much like the quack of a duck ; the cock is usually silent, but in the pairing season calls with a bleat like a young lamb, and also, but for only two or three days in each season, according to Mr. Barnby Smitb, who has carefully studied this species in confinement, gives out a weird, far-reaching, moaning call like oo-ah, oo-ah, apparently as a challenge. Cocks can be called up by imitating them, but are even then very wary and hard to shoot ; in fact, it is very difficult to get a sight of tragopans at any time, and the peculiarities of their display have been made out from captive birds. As a general rule, unless they can be hustled out of the ringal cover by dogs and made to rise, they afford very little sport, for when seen in the open, as they rarely are, they break away on foot if possible and give only a snap-shot. They are often not better eating than ordinary fowls, so that on the whole, though most fascinating to the naturalist, they do not figure prominently on the game list. Tcmminck's Tragopan. Tragopan temmincki. Oiia-oua-ky, Chinese. Temminck's tragopan, as may be judged from its alternative name of Chinese crimson tragopan, is a bird whose most con- spicuous colour is red, as in our eastern Indian species ; but the Chinese bird is a perfectly distinct species, not a mere local race, although the two are undoubtedly far nearer to each other than either is to any of the few other tragopans known. The characteristic points of the Chinese bird are, first, the bareness of the face, which permits the bright blue colour of the skin to appear, and makes the bird in life conspicuously different from the Indian bird with its black-feathered counten- ance ; and secondly, the fact that the plumage is spotted, not TEMMINCK'S TRAGOPAN 209 with white, but with grey, and that these light spots have not the black borders which so throw up the pearl spangling of the crimson tragopan of India. The spots are also larger in Temminck's tragopan, especially on the under-surface, where as much grey shows as red, the feathers being practically grey with broad red borders. The bib, as expanded during courtship, is of apparently the same colour in both tragopans, being blue with a row of scarlet patches down each side ; at least that is what I have noted, having seen each species display. I can give no criterion for distinguishing the hen of this bird from that of the Indian crimson tragopan ; but as no two tragopans have been found living together in our borders as yet, the problem of separating these is not likely to arise. As it occurs on the Mishmi Hills, the Chinese crimson tragopan was long suspected to be a likely resident in our borders, and this suspicion became certainty in 1903, when Mr. E. C. S. Baker reported to the Bombay Natural History Society on two specimens which had been "shot by Mr. W. Scott, Civil Officer of the Sadon Hill Tracts, on the Panseng Pass at a height of 9,000 feet. Mr. Scott in a forwarding letter described the bird's call as "one single, high note, not unlike a cat's mew." It is the south-western and central parts of China that are the best known home of this species, but it appears to be, according to Mr. Baker, very common above 8,000 feet on the Mishmi, Dafla, and Abu Hills ; in Sadya it is found on the high ranges within only a dozen miles of the frontier police posts. Pere David, writing of its habits in China, says it is not common anywhere ; it lives alone on bush-covered hills and rarely comes out of its cover, where it feeds on seeds, fruits, and leaves. He says its very sonorous cry can be represented by the syllable oiia twice repeated, whence one of its Chinese names ; the syllable ky means fowl, as in the two other names, Ko or Kiao-ky (horned fowl) or Sin-tsiou-ky (starred fowl). He says it is a much esteemed game bird, all the more so because it is so scarce and can only be captured by a trap or springe. In captivity in Europe it is as well known as the Indian 14 210 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS species, or at any rate used to be, but of late j'ears I have only seen the Indian crimson bird at the Zoo, though the only other Chinese tragopan known, Cabot's or the buff-breasted {T. cahoti), has been exhibited of late and been not uncommon in the bird trade. In captivity the Temminck's tragopan shows the same tendency to nest high up as the Indian crimson species ; the eggs are cream or buff colour closely speckled with brown. Western Tragopan. Tragopan melanocephalus. Jewar, Garhwal. The " Simla argus," as this tragopan is sometimes called, the crimson bird being the " Sikkim argus" — both wrongly, for as I said before, they are not at all like argus pheasants — is suffi- ciently like its Eastern relative to be recognized as a close kins- man at once ; there are the same white spots, the same general size and form, and the same red on the neck and pinions, while the ground-colour of the back is of a similar mottled brown. But the under-parts are very different, being nearly all black in ground-colour, thus enhancing the guinea-fowl effect, while the face is quite bare and bright-red, although the bib is said to show both red and blue, and is probably similar, when fully expanded, to that of the better-known species. The hen is more of a true pepper-and-salt grizzle, with less rufous in the tint, and on the under-parts is distinctly spotted with white ; her hues are altogether colder than those of the crimson bird's female, as one would expect from the sparseness of the red colouring in her mate, which would really be better called the black tragopan, from his dominant colour. The young cock, as in the other species, first shows his colour on the neck ; he is said not to come into full colour till the third year. This species runs a little larger than the crimson bird ; it is found from the ridge between the Kaltor and Billing rivers in native Garhwal, on the east, all along the hills as far as Hazara, being known in the north-west as Sing- monal. As the crimson tragopan is also called Monal in Nepal, it seems that natives group the great pheasant-partridges, as one WESTERN TRAGOPAN 211 may call these birds, and the true monals together. In Kullu, Mandi, and Suket there are different names for the sexes, the cock being Jigurana and the hen Budal ; the Chamba name is Falgnr, and that used in Bashahr is Jaghi. Unlike so many representative species, the two tragopans do not range up to each others' boundaries, for, says Hume, from the ridge in Garhwal above-mentioned, "for some four days' march you meet with neither species. In this interval there are three high ranges to cross that divide the Bhilling Rand Valley from that of the Bangar Rand, this latter from the Mandagni Valley, and this latter again from that of the Alaknanda." How it is the birds have left this considerable bit of neutral ground untenanted appears never to have been explained, and the problem would be well worth solving. Like the crimson tragopan this species is essentially a wood- lander ; it feeds chiefly on leaves, especially of box, oak, ringal, and a privet-like shrub ; it also likes berries, especially that of the Dekha of Kullu, and takes insects, acorns, and grubs as well, while in captivity it eats grain. Though shifting its ground more or less according to season, and ascending in the spring to near the forest limit, it often remains in forests with plenty of snow on the ground, being able to find its food in the trees. It is a shy bird, avoiding human habitations, and seldom seen even by natives, while, though it becomes tame very quickly in captivity, it seems rarely to be exported, so that its intimate habits and display are apparently unknown. The wild alarm note is a repeated bleat like a lamb's or kid's, and the spring call is a loud version of the same ; no doubt there are really two notes as in the crimson tragopan. Where not disturbed, these birds may be seen at times feeding in open patches in the forests along with monal, and are easily shot when treed by dogs ; but persecution makes them very wary, and at the best of times a pot-shot on the ground or in a tree is all that can be got. They hide them- selves with great skill, and when " treed " watch the sportsman and shoot off as soon as discovered before proper aim can be taken. They generally keep in straggling parties, and are often found alone. The eggs have rarely been taken, owing probably to the 212 INDIAN SPOKTING BIEDS assumption that birds of this kind must be ground-breeders. Those that have been taken are dull freckled buff; six were in the clutch, and May was the month in which they were taken, at the western limit of the bird's range in Hazara. They were on the ground, in a spot where a landslip had carried away a bit of pine-forest, covered with small second growth of bushes and shrubs ; the nest was a rough structure of grass and sticks. No doubt if old pigeons' and squirrels' nests are investigated in this tragopan's haunts, the eggs will be more easily found. Grcy-brcastcd or Blyth's Tragopan. Tragopan blythi. Sansaria, Assamese. The grey-breasted tragopan is distinguished at once from our other species by the spotless smoke-grey of the under-parts, although the upper plumage is mottled much as in our other species, and the neck is of the same red ; the fleshy horns are also of the usual blue, but the face-skin is bright rich yellow, bordered with green where it ends on the throat. Although I have seen the bird alive, I have never witnessed its display, so cannot give the colour of the bib, which of course can only be properly seen in the live bird. Although rather smaller the hen is very similar to that of the crimson tragopan, but the under plumage is less rich in tint, and there is more of the black peppering in the grizzled brown of the upper plumage. Little is known of this beautiful bird, although it was described by Jerdon as long ago as 1869 ; it is best known from the Naga Hills, though it also ranges into Manipur and Cachar, and has been reported from the Daphla Hills also. The Nagas, who know it by the name of gnu, are in the habit of catching it " by laying a line of snares across a ravine which they are known to frequent, and then, with a large circle of beaters, driving the birds down to them. They go as quietly as possible, so as not to frighten the birds sufficiently to make them take flight, as if not much alarmed they prefer running." This bird's habits are, in fact, evidently much the same as those of other MONAUL 213 tragopans, the group being as much ahke in their ways as they are in their general appearance, although the species are so well characterized and distinct. The cry is evidently some sort of a bleat as in the other species, as it is said to be expressed in the syllable " aA." The habitat of the bird is high jungle, and it does not seem to range lower than 5,000 feet, while going up to the tops of its native hills. The breeding season is said to be in April, and three or four eggs to form the full clutch ; these eggs appear to be of the buff, brown-spotted type, normal in the group. In Cachar Mr. E. G. S. Baker once watched, in April, a pair, of which the male was " busy courting the hen who refused all advances. They behaved exactly like domestic fowls, and the cock kept running round the female with trailing wing." This, however, judging from what has been seen of other better-known tragopans, would only be the simpler and commoner form of display, so that the full show posture evidently remains to be recorded. One of the first specimens known was sent home alive to the Zoo, and they have had several others since ; in fact, the bird seems to have become better known in captivity than in its wild state. Monaul. Lophophorus refulgens. Munal, Hindustani. An American naturalist has well said that this gorgeous bird reminds one of a humming-bird enlarged to the size of a fowl ; and really this does give one some idea of the remarkable appearance of this glory of our hills, for only among the humming-birds do we find such brilliant green and copper as clothe the cock monaul's head and neck, while the purple and blue of his back and wings are only second in brilliancy to the tints further forward. As the bird flies off, however, two more hues are particularly striking, the snow-white patch in the middle of the back, completely hidden in repose by the wings, and the rich chestnut of the short broad partridge-like tail. In fact, in 214 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS spite of the brilliant colours and peacock-like crest of the male, which have given him the name of Nil-mor and Jungli-mor in Kashmir, there is something very partridge-like about the bird, and to call him the Impeyan PJieasant, as is often done, is rather an abuse of terms, for, although a member of the pheasant family, he is no more a pheasant than he is a jungle fowl or a peacock, but, with his few relatives, stands alone as a type. The hen, in her mottled-brown plumage, is just like a giant partridge ; her only distinctive marks are the bare blue eye- patch she shares with the cock, and the pure white of the throat. Yearling cocks may be at once picked out on the wing by the patch of plain buff which foreshadows the snow-white escutcheon they will bear when in full plumage, which is not till next year, and even second-year birds have the seventh quill brown. The monaul is a heavy, bulky bird, weighing about four and a half pounds in the case of the cock, the hen being about half a pound less. It carries a great amount of breast- meat, and tastes much like a turkey, at any rate during autumn and winter ; the thigh sinews run to bone, and need drawing like a turkey's. The monaul is confined to the Himalayas, and is seldom found lower than .5,000 feet even in winter, while in summer it ranges up to the forest limit and even above it, some old males climbing nearly to the snow-line. However, it is, generally speaking, a forest bird, and so usually roosts in trees at night, besides often alighting on them in the day-time when disturbed. It is a strong-flying wary bird, more of a flyer than a runner, and quite ready to cross a wide valley on the wing when sur- prised. Its call, which is somewhat like that of the peewit at home, but a whistled instead of a mewing call, is a source of annoyance to sportsmen after big game in the heights, for of course the beasts attend to the warning. Both cock and hen call similarly, and the note is quite unlike that of any other of our game-birds. Monaul are, like the family generally, mixed feeders, but they specialize on underground food — roots and grubs — and hoe these up with their powerful bills : they rarely scratch like the phea- sants and fowls, being able to do the work of unearthing food MONAUL 215 with the bill alone as a rule. In the wild state they do not care for corn, but will eat it in captivity, especially wheat ; but any- one keeping them should always supply chopped roots as well. They are not very sociable, and old males are often found alone ; their spurs are short, and one does not hear about their fighting m a wild state, though in captivity a strong male will hunt a weaker one to death, and I have known a vicious youngster to completely scalp a hen. But, on the whole, they are gentle, quiet birds compared with the excitable pheasants. The display of the cock is curious — he begins by bending down his head and expanding the turquoise eye-patch ; then he sets out his wings without fully expanding them, and raises and spreads his tail, thus showing all his top-colour at once. When thus at full show he parades with mincing gait round the hen, now' and then hopping in a way strangely out of place for so heavy and dignified a bird. He often has but one mate, but in localities where the species is common several may fall to his lot. In fact, Wilson, the " Mountaineer " so well known in Indian sporting literature for his unrivalled accounts of our Indian hill game-birds, found that by rigidly preserving hens he could market male skins of this species and the western tragopan by hundreds yearly without decreasing the stock, so that polygamy is quite a workable arrangement for the species, although Mr. St. Quintin, who has bred it in confinement in England, finds that the cock looks after and broods the chicks as well as the hen. But this may have been due to isolation ; the general impression in India is that the hen only tends the brood. Owing to the value of its jewelled plumage the bird has been liable to be much poached by natives, who capture it with nooses and dead-falls, all of which devices ought to be strictly forbidden, as they are fatal to hens as well as cocks. To the legitimate exploitation of the males no reasonable person should object, but these game-birds need careful protection, and if the natives' poaching propensities could be directed to the destruction of the numerous vermin of India a great point would be gained. In this connection it should be mentioned that the hawk-eagle is an inveterate foe of this bird and of tragopans, while no doubt the marten accounts for a good many. 216 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS Monauls breed iu late spring, the hen making a "scrape" under a root or rock, and laying seldom more than five eggs ; they can be first found in May, and may easily be mistaken for those of a turkey, but are slightly larger than the eggs laid by Indian turkeys at any rate. The native name Munal, with the feminine Munali, is especi- ally used in the Central Himalayas ; in Kulu the male is distin- guished as Nil and the female as Karari ; in Kashmir the sex- appellations are Lont for the cock and Hami for the hen ; Bat- nal and liatkap are used in the North-west Himalayas, while the Lepchas and Bhutias call the bird Fo-dong and Cham-dong respectively, and Dafia is the name in Nepal, recalling the term Datiya in Kumaun and Garhwal. There is a certain tendency to variation in the plumage of the male monaul, and in some cases this has led to some unsatisfac- tory species being named ; a form with blue instead of copper- red on the neck has been called Lopliophorus mantoiii, and in several books a variety is called the Bronze-backed Monaul, and credited with being the true Lopliopliorus impeyanus, whereas it always used to be supposed that it was the typical form which was named after Impey. This variety, for I personally cannot swallow it as a species, and natives say it is only a casual variation, has only been found in Chamba, where the common form is well known. It is distinguished from this bird by having much more metallic gloss on the plumage, there being no white patch on the back, but purple all the way down, while the green of the throat spreads all over the under-parts, which are intense velvet-black in the typical bird. As no hens ever turn up, and as birds only differing in colour invariably interbreed and do not themselves recognize a difference of species, I really think naturalists have been too much in a hurry in giving specific rank to this freak ; for it so happens that the pheasant family are particularly apt to produce well-marked and natural-looking colour-variations, of which the black-winged peacock, also once ranked as a species, is a striking example.' ' Since writing the above, I find that Mr. C. W. Beebe has published (Zoologica, vol. i. p. 272) his conviction that the Chauiba monaul is "unques- tionably a mutation, sport, or abnormal variation.'' BLOOD PHEASANT 217 Crcstlcss or Sclatcr's Monaul. Lopliopliorus sclateri. Although this fine bird has not yet occurred in Indian limits, it is very likely to be found to do so, since it inhabits the Mishmi Hill, like the Chinese crimson tragopan, now definitely estab- lished as an inhabitant of our Empire. If met with it is extremely easy to recognize, for, m spite of a general resemblance to the common monaul, it has two very marked points of distinc- tion, one at each end — the absence of the crest, combined with a peculiar frizzling of the scalp-plumage, and the white tip to the tail. The white patch on the back also extends right down to the root of the tail, not being separated from it by a dark glossy area as in the common monaul ; and this in the case of a captive bird, which is likely to have a broken tail and probably a damaged scalp as well, will no doubt prove the best distinction. The hen bird, since the question of crest does not come in, is naturally more like the hen common monaul, but even in her case there is a clear and easily-seen distinction ; for she also has a white-tipped tail, and if this mark, owing to damage, be not avail- able for recognition, the noticeable light area on the lower back will show a difference from the common monaul's female. The first specimen of this bird on record was seen by Jerdon in 1869, and, though it was in bad feather, he, with his great knowledge of birds, divined it was probably a novelty, and proposed the scientific name it now bears. The bird was then living at Shillong, healthy, though in damaged condition ; it ultimately reached the London Zoo. As only a few specimens have turned up since, brought down by Mishmis and Abors to the annual fair at Sadiya, there is hardly anything to say about this bird, one of the most gorgeous in existence. Blood Pheasant. Ithagenes cruentus. Chilime, Nepalese. In spite of his striking plumage of slate-grey, pale-green, and carmine, the cock of our Alpine blood pheasant looks, on the whole, more like a partridge, having a short tail and only 218 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS weighing a little over the pound ; while the hen, being brown all over, would certainly be called a partridge by anyone who did not know her mate. Her bright red legs and red eye-patch, which she has in common with the cock, are distinctive points, as also is the fine pencilling of black over the brown plumage, which has no striking markings. Young cocks are said to assume a duller edition of the masculine plumage when half-grown ; they have no spurs, but their elders are most plentifully provided in that respect, and may have up to nine spurs on the two legs. The Bhutias, who call the bird So7ne or Semo, credit it with growing a new spur every year, but this is at least doubtful, and the bird is so rarely kept in captivity that opportunities for observation have been wanting. One pair reached the London Zoo a few years back, and I was struck with their essentially partridge-like appearance. Their importer, Mr. W. Frost, told me that they were spiteful with other birds, and backed each other up, the hen waiting on an elevated spot till the cock ran a bird under her, when she would spring on i't and do her share of the mauling. That the bird should be seldom kept alive is not remarkable, for it is not often even shot ; it is purely Himalayan — though very similar species occur outside our limits— and always keeps high up near the snows, but affects cover, not open rocky spots like the snow-partridge. Pine forests and mountain bamboo clumps are favourite haunts, and here the birds scratch for food like fowls, and are nearly equally omnivorous in their tastes. But, like most of our game-birds, they specialize somewhat in food ; they do not eat bulbs, and do eat pine tops and juniper berries, especially in winter and spring, for they remain all the year at high elevations. As they do not range lower than 10,000 feet, their haunts are liable to be snowed up, but in addition to the food they get from the conifers, they seem to burrow in the snow for either subsistence or shelter ; for they have been taken at 12,000 feet in January. They perch freely at all times when alarmed, but fly little and generally run to cover when startled ; the alarm-note is "ship, ship,'" and a scattered covey is piped together by a long MOUNTAIN QUAIL 219 squealing call. The covey varies in number from ten to twenty birds, and in winter packs of up to a hundred may be found. Not much is really known about these birds, which seem to have their haunts very much to themselves. Even the eggs have not been taken, but these must be laid pretty early, for 3'oung ones are about in May ; and Jerdon got the half-grown birds on the Singhallala spur west of Darjeeling in September, a locality unusually near the plains for this species. It maybe gathered from what has been said about its running habits that this bird is not of the sport-showing description; but, occurring as it does where other game is scarce, it is useful for food if one is hard up for meat. But it is an uncertain article of diet, for though it has been found excellent eating in September, after feeding on berries, leaves, and seeds, a diet of coniferous vegetables reduces it to a condition of rankness and toughness that requires a really keen appetite to overcome ; so that it is a bird to be left alone as long as even village fowls can be procured. Mountain Quail. Oplirijsia supercUiosa. Anyone lucky enough to start this curious little bird in shooting in the hills might recognize it by its tail, which is far bigger than in any quail-like bird, whether true quail, bush quail or button quail, being in fact three inches long, while the bird itself is little bigger than the common grey quail. A true quail it certainly is not ; some call it a pigmy pheasant, and it may be that, if the blood pheasant is fairly called a pheasant, for to that bird it seems to be allied. Like it, it has long soft plumage and red legs ; but it has no spurs, and the colour of the sexes, though different, does not present the striking contrast of the cock and hen blood pheasants. The cock mountain quail is grey, narrowly streaked with black along the edges of the feathers, and the hen brown, also variegated w^ith black markings, but in her case these are broader and occupy the centre of the feather. There is, in fact, nothing in her colour to attract attention, but the cock is noticeable for the rather 220 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS striking black-and-white colouring of his head, and of the feathers under the tail. Both have red bills, brightest in the cock ; but in some apparently the legs and bill may be yellow, as in the first recorded specimens, which were in the Earl of Derby's private zoo in 1846. It was not certain that these came from India, but nobody has found the bird anywhere else ; and even there it has only rarely turned up, always in the hills, and generally in winter. Less than a dozen specimens, in fact, are on record, and all these have been got near Mussoorie or Naini Tal. Hume suggested that they may have come " from the better-wooded south- eastern portions of Chinese Tibet," which little-known region might certainly furnish novelties. But the bird does not look at all a wanderer ; its wings are small even for a bird of this family, none of which have pinions adapted for lengthened flight. The common grey quail is the best provided in this respect, and that has wings of four inches or more from the pinion to the tip — the usual way of measuring a bird's wing, as it can be done in a skin made up as usual with closed wings ; the mountain quail, although larger than the common quail, shows a wing of barely more than three-and-a-half inches measured in this way. It may be that the birds obtained represent some of the last survivors of a declining species ; such species must always be in existence, and may no doubt disappear without record, for extinction of course goes on, as it did before the advent of man with his much-abused destructive habits, from natural causes. In the Naini Tal Tarai, for instance, there exists a large weaver bird or baya, the Ploceus megarhijnchus of Hume, of which very few specimens have ever been obtained ; yet this is the brightest-coloured as well as the largest of the Indian bayas, the cock in breeding-dress being nearly all yellow, on the throat and belly as well as the breast and cap. This may be a declining form ; but against the theory of imminent extinction in the case of the mountain quail, and in favour of that of migration, may be set the dates of the latter bird's occurrence, which are almost all in the winter months. Thus it has occurred near Mussoorie in November, 1865, and close to Naini Tal in December, 1876. In November, 1867, however, a number appeared at Jerepani, yji'Mij •^ >- ^^Vwr BAMBOO PARTRIDCiE 221 and some of these were still there in June of the following year, but were not seen later. Like a partridge, this bird is found in coveys, as well as in pairs or alone ; it is extremely hard to put up out of the long grass or other low cover in which it lives, finding its food in the grass-seeds, and only taking a short slow flight when disturbed. Its presence, however, i.s often betrayed by its whistling call, which is quite peculiar. Being a hard bird to shoot and poor eating, there is not much inducement to go after it, and for the last thirty-eight years none have been seen or heard of either in India or anywhere else. Bamboo Partridge. Bamhusicola fijtchii. The general impression made by this bird may be judged of by the fact that an escaped specimen in England some years ago figured in a sporting paper as a hybrid between a partridge and a pheasant ; it is, indeed, a partridge in size, but its tail in length and form rather recalls the pheasant type. The plumac^e is sober and partridge-like, and the same in both sexes ; the distinctive points about it are the chestnut spots on the brown back, and the diamond or heart-shaped black markings on the belly. The legs are grey, spurred in the cock, and often in the hen as well. The bamboo partridge was first discovered by Dr. Anderson at Ponsee, in Yunnan ; here it frequented old rice land on hillsides at 3,000 feet. It is now known to inhabit Manipur, the Kachyen Hills, and in our territory. Upper Burma and the hill ranges west to Assam. This being so, it at first seems strange that a good-sized bird like this should have first been made known from outside, when it occurs even near Shillong, but it is a very skulking bird, and difficult to flush. Besides bamboo-jungle, it haunts long grass and heavy forest jungle ; it is strictly a hill bird keeping above 2,000 feet. It perches freely and roosts in trees at night ; and on rising in the morning will come out into open spaces. It is 222 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS not an abundant bird, and generally found in pairs ; its call, heard in spring, is unmusical and loud, like che-ke heree. The nesting season is said to be May and June, and the eggs brownish-buff laid in a nest on the ground in or under a tuft of grass. The weight is about twelve ounces in the cock and a couple less in the hen ; the plumage is exceedingly variable in detail, but the points given above, in conjunction with the length of tail, which may reach five inches, make this bird easily distinguishable from other local partridges, especially the woodland species, all of which except this one have very short tails. Himalayan Snow-cock. Tetraogallus himalayensis. Bamchukar, Hindustani. The home of this great grey partridge, as big as a small goose, is the rocky but grassed slopes between the forests and the snows on the Himalayas ; its eastern limit is Kumaun, and it ranges on the west through Afghanistan, where it is called kabk-i-dara, to Central Asia. Seen on its native heath, or rather turf, it looks, from its orey colour and orange legs, large size, and rather awkward gait, very like a goose ; it also has other goose-like habits, feeding mostly on grass, though now and then scratching up a tasty bulb, and being eminently sociable, several old birds being seen together with a number of chicks ; while the sentinel perched on a stone ready to give warning to the pack is eminently reminiscent of the ways of wild geese. When on the wing, these birds fly well and often high, frequently crossing from one ridge to another, or travelling a mile at a time, and they are particularly conspicuous when in flight, owing to their pinion-quills being white except at the tips, while they keep up a continual whistle while flying. They habitually feed up- hill, walk slowly, and never run far ; in fact they are not built for much sprinting, being thickset, short-legged birds and very heavy, the cock weighing up to six and a half pounds, and normally about five. The hen is not nearly so large, but still weighs between three or four pounds, and except for having pi.n. Cef'wrnis rnelcuwcepJialus. PorzancL aJwoh. £ax:alfactoricL sinensis. .^:^^ Ferdioc hodgsonigB. Pterocles aenegodus ^J^ -m TetraogaUas liunMlayensis . A W Strutt Del ■"Waller, Chrome I-.t^-ij Ea-Uoa Garden Londc HIMALAYAN SNOW-COCK 223 no spurs, is just like the cock, both having the same chestnut- edged white bib and white breast, and chestnut streaks on the grey ground of the wings and sides. Snow-cocks, often somewhat absurdly called snow-pheasants, for they are most obvious partridges in everything except size, avoid cover of any sort, but they are rather partial to rocks, and roost on the shelves of precipices at night. They like feeding on spots where sheep have been folded at night earlier in the year, as the grazing is better in such places ; and on cold, dull, and wet days keep on the feed all day, though warm bright weather makes them sluggish and disinclined to leave their rocky perches except at morning and evening. They are, indeed, essentially birds of the cold bleak heights, and few remain to breed on the Indian side of the Gangetic section of the moun- tains, the majority here apparently crossing the snows to nest in Chinese Tibet, though in Kunawar they are common at all seasons. In September they appear between the woods and the snow, and as winter draws on the heavy falls drive them down to any open hills they may find in the forest belt. Their migration seems to be made at night, and in mild winters hardly any come down ; 7,000 feet is about the limit in any case. Once settled on a hill, they stay till the end of March, and each pack has its own location, to which it appears to return every year. They will feed on young sprouting corn very readily, and eat other herbage besides grass, but only visit isolated patches of cultivation. Generally speaking, they dislike a nearer approach than about eighty yards, and though they will merely walk ofT at first if approached from below, an intruder from above will make them take wing almost at once ; while their vigilant sentries see to it that no advance is made unnoted. Generally speaking, there- fore, they need a rifle to bring them to book, and as their ground is also frequented by burrhel and tahr, many people find them rather a nuisance than otherwise, since when out with a rifle men prefer the four-footed game, and the alarm-whistle of the birds startles these. Moreover, although such fine big birds, and usually very fat, they are indifferent eating at best, and 224 INDIAN SPORTING BIRDS often positively nasty, no doubt on account of some herbs or roots they eat. All birds with this attribute of occasional unpleasantness, by the way, ought to be drawn as soon as killed, as this often prevents the tainting of the flesh by the food which may have been eaten ; and in any case some natives will eat them, so that shooting them is not by any means wanton destruction. Their chief enemy appears to be the golden eagle, but as he prefers, according to Wilson's excellent account of this species, to take his game sitting, and the snow-cock naturally does not wait for this, but flies off before his tyrant stoops, he does not often get one. But this may only apply to the young eagle, the ring-tail as Wilson calls it, from the banded appearance of the tail, which has a white base in the young ; no doubt the older birds learn by practice to catch their prey flying, and in fact I have read somewhere a description of such a chase in which the eagle used his advantage of height to drop on the flying snow-cock before the victim had got up full speed. The comparatively few birds which breed on the Indian side of the Himalayas nest from 12,000 feet upwards to the snows, making a " scrape " in some spot well sheltered from rain. The eggs are not unlike turkeys' eggs, but darker and greener in the ground-colour, an olive or brownish stone- colour in fact, with fine brown spots. Five is the usual clutch, and when more are seen it is to be suspected that two pairs have " pooled " their broods, though many pairs separate and bring up their young by themselves in the usual manner of partridges. The eggs are generally laid by the end of May, but sometimes not till early in July. This conspicuous bird naturally has many names : Huimval in Kumaun, Kubiik or Gourkagu in Kashmir, Leep in Kulu, and Kullu, Lupu, or Baera in Western Nepal, though the bird is not actually found in Nepal itself; the Mussoori hillmen's name, Jei'-moonal, implies a recognition of the relationship of this great partridge to the short-tailed so- called pheasants of the tragopan and the monaul groups. TIBETAN SNOW-COCK 225 Tibetan Snow-cock. Tetraogallus tibetanus. Hrak-pa, Bhutanese. Although found in our territory from Sikkim to Ladak, it is only at the highest elevations that this species of snow-cock is to be found, and even on the wing it may be noticed as something different from the ordinary kind, not showing the conspicuous white on the pinion-quills, which are dark with white tips instead of the reverse. Close at hand the differences in plumage are even more striking, for the grey colour of the upper-parts only extends across the breast, the belly being white with black streaks. Here again, then, there is a reversal of colours in the two species, the common snow-cock having a grey belly and white breast, slightly barred transversely with back. Moreover, although the legs are of much the same colour in both species, the bare skin near the eye is red in the present bird, and yellow in the other. The Tibetan snow- cock is a much smaller bird than the Himalayan, the cock barely equalling the hen of that bird in size ; and in the Tibetan species the hen is not much smaller than the cock. The real home of this desolation-loving bird is the northern side of the mountains between India and Tibet, and it is generally distributed over the latter country, extending to Turkestan westwards, and east to Kansu and southern Koko- Nor. In the Himalayas it is seldom found lower than 15,000 feet, and occurs up to 19,000. A sure find for it appears to be the Sanpo Pass, where it is particularly common. Scully found it abundant near there in 1874, having seen hundreds in one day ; he found them excellent eating and not very shy. According to Prjevalski, who observed it in its north-eastern haunts, this is a lively, noisy bird, with several calls — a note, uttered at rest, much like a common hen's, varied by a snipe-like whistle, a click, click, when alighting, and a goooo, gooo when settling down on the ground ; while it has a distinct whistle for reassembling a scattered brood. He considered the birds very wild, and found them good runners ; but both he and Scully noticed that they would not stand an approach from above so readily as from 15 226 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS below, flying in that case instead of running, and thus in this point resembling their Himalayan relatives. This snow-cock does not seem to nest on our side of the hills, and not very much is known about its breeding anywhere. But Prjevalsky found them pairing in April, and came across young in August, some no bigger than quails, and others full-sized ; so that, here again like the Himalayan species, they must lay at different times. The eggs appear to be greenish- white with dark spots. Both parents lead the brood of from five to ten young, and when these are fledged, the whole take wing together and do not settle till they have put a ravine or valley between themselves and their pursuers. They moult in August, and even in September were not fat, though natives said that they did become so in autumn, so that towards winter they would probably be in good condition for the table. Grey Partridge. Francoli7ius po7idicerianus. Titar, Hindustani. The grey partridge, which is one of the sub-group of part- ridges known as francolins, is the partridge of India, and to it the name titar especially applies, though it is sometimes called gora or safed titar, to distinguish it, no doubt, from another very well-known francolin, the black partridge. It is not really grey any more than the so-called grey partridge which takes its place in Europe, but brown with pale cross-pencillings, not very unlike that bird, above ; but below it is decidedly different, showing none of the grey on the breast which the European common partridge {Perdix perdix) has, nor the " horseshoe " on the lower chest ; the under-parts in our Indian bird are barred w^ith fine rather sparse dark cross-lines on a pale buff ground. The throat is un- marked, and outlined by a rather imperfect black necklace. In the common partridge of India there is not even the small sex difference that occurs in the European bird's plumage, the cock being only distinguished by his spurs, which are well developed. The legs are red, but not bright as in the chukor or the " red- leg " at home. GKEY PAKTEIDGE 227 All these points are easily to be studied by any newcomer to India before he goes out to shoot, for this partridge, being the favourite fighting bird among sporting natives, is con- stantly to be seen in cages everywhere, and its characteristic call, kd, kit, kateetur, kateetur, as it is well rendered by Hume, is the first game-bird's note one is likely to hear other than the degenerate utterances of the domesticated descendants of the mallard and jungle-fowl and the cooing of the blue pigeons. Almost wherever one goes in India one is Hkely to find this bird, and it is also found m the north of Ceylon, where it is called Oussa-ivatmva, but is not an inhabitant of Burma, though in the opposite direction it is found outside our limits to the Gulf. It is absent in swampy districts and heavy jungle, and does not occur south of Bombay on the Malabar coast-line, nor is it found in Lower Bengal, being a bird of dry, warm soils, low cover and cultivation. But, although it is to some extent a percher, taking readily to trees when alarmed, and often roosting in them, it can do without such cover as well as without cultivation, and exist, if the ground be broken, in practically desert localities, as in the Sind hills. It does not go high in the hills anywhere, a couple of thousand feet being its limit. It is a bold bird, not only feeding on ploughed and stubble fields, but on roads, and visiting threshing-floors in the early mornings ; in fact, it hangs about villages so much that it shares the unsavoury reputation of the hare and the village fowl. Grain of all sorts it gladly eats, and also takes grass and seeds, young leaves and insects, especially white ants, breaking up a nest of these being an excellent way to attract partridges. Even when it has been living on irreproachable diet, however, this partridge is poor and dry compared with his savoury relative in Britain, and although he flies more smartly and strongly, has a great objection to doing so, and will run so persistently that to follow him is only missing chances at quail and hares, which are more certain shots ; tlfongh in some places, as in heavy grain crops on cloddy soil, the little skulkers can be made to rise willy- nilly, and then furnish good enough sport. They can also be treed by any dog which will hunt, and shot in this way, but in the ordinary way are only subjects for chance shots and not a regular object of pursuit. 228 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS They are found both in pairs and in coveys, the latter pre- sumably being family parties, the cocks being far too quarrelsome to live together ; and they are prolific birds, for though nine is more than the usual number of the creamy-white eggs, they breed twice a year, at any rate in many cases, the spring nesting beginning in February, and the later about August. The nesting habits vary curiously ; the nest may be practically non-existent, the eggs being laid on the ground, or it may be a hollow in a tussock or under a bush, more or less lined with grass, or even, a most remarkable site, made in the branches of a thick shrub a yard off the ground. The Bengali name of this bird is Khyr, the Tamil Kondari ; Kawnnzu is the Telugu appellation. Swamp Partridge. Francolinus gularis. Bhil-titar, Cachari. The khyah, as this fine partridge is called by the Bengalis, is, unlike most game-birds, essentially a bird of swampy and alluvial soil, overgrown by high grass and cane; but even where it is commonly found along with other partridges, as it is in some places, it is a very distinctive bird. It is as big as a jungle hen, looks all its size on account of its long legs, and has a very smart appearance ; its upper plumage is much like that of the common grey partridge, but the under-parts, with their well-marked broad longitudinal white streaking on a brown ground, contrasting with the rich rust-red of the throat, are most characteristic, and make one wonder how people could ever have mixed this bird up with the chukor, with which it has nothing in common except being of good size for a partridge and having red legs, though these are not bright in tint. The male has sharp spurs, but this is the only sex distinction except his slightly larger sj^e. The swamps of the Tarai, and the low-lying lands along the courses of the Ganges, Megna, and Brahmaputra, and the lower reaches of their tributaries, are the habitat of this bird ; Cachar is its eastern limit, and it is found as far west as Pilibhit. Considering its tastes in locality, it is curious that it does not SWAMP PAKTRIDGE 229 occur in the Snndarbans, and that it sometimes is found on land of as much as 4,000 feet elevation. Some of its haunts are so low that it is driven by floods to take to the trees in the rains, or to leave its home altogether and resort to cultiva- tion or bush-jungle. It is rare to find it in grass low enough to go after it on foot, and when on cultivated land the birds have a sentry posted on some bush. They are found in pairs, threes or coveys, and are more noisy and quarrelsome, if anything, than their smaller relative the grey partridge, whose call their own resembles, but with the last syllable cut off; evidences of their desperate battles are found in the honourable scars which adorn the breast of so many specimens, but these veterans are but dry eating, as may well be supposed. Their asserted enmity to the black partridge has been doubted, on the ground that the two species may in some places be flushed out of the same grass cover, but it is probable that in the breeding-season this large and fierce bird is a serious enemy to other partridges of smaller size, though there may be a truce at other times. At any rate, those who value the fine black partridge should have an eye on the " grass chukor " till he has been proved innocent ; though as a rule his preferences in the matter of habitat must make him harmless in most cases. If worked for from elephants, the kyah gives very good sport, but its flustering, cackling rise is rather trying at first to the nerves of behemoth if not to his rider. From the high cover it affects the breeding of this species is naturally not much under observation ; the eggs seem to be five in number, and are slightly darker than those of the grey partridge, and likewise differ in being sparingly marked with pale brown or lilac at the large end, having in this, it must be admitted, a slight resemblance to the real chukor's eggs. The nest is on the ground among high grass, and has been found in April. Besides Bhil-titur, this bird is called Bun and Jungli-titur in Hindustani ; Kaijah is another Bengali name, and the Assamese is Koera ; Koi is also used in Assam. 230 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS Black Partridge. FrcDicolinus vulgaris. Kala tiiar, Hindustani. The black partridge, which is the original and typical fran- colin, is at once distinguished from all other Indian partridges by the prevalence of black in his colour ; his white cheeks and chestnut collar, and the beautiful variegation of white in pen- cilling on the tail and rump and spotting on the sides, make him one of the most beautiful partridges known, and, unlike the generality of our partridges, very distinguishable even from his own hen. In her, the markings are in the less contrast- ing tones of brown and buff, and differ somewhat in detail, the under-parts in old hens, at any rate, being pencilled, not spotted, while the collar is reduced to a patch of chestnut at the nape ; but this is quite enough to distinguish her from our other brown partridges, none of which have this chestnut nape-patch. The legs are orange, spurred in the cock. The weight of a cock black partridge is up to twenty ounces, though some are only half that weight, as the birds vary greatly in size ; hens run two or three ounces less than cocks. The marked distinction between the sexes is indicated by the Hindustani name Kais-titur for the female, Kala, of course, especially indicating the male ; the Garhwal name Tetra rather recalls the Greek tetrax for some game-bird, but is more pro- bably related to the Hindustani Titur ; in Manipur, the farthest point east at which the bird is found, it is called Vremhi. It is one of the few Indian birds of non-migratory habit which extend to Europe ; at any rate, it is still found in Cyprus as well as throughout Asia Minor, but is now extinct in the countries bordering the Mediterranean on the north, though formerly found even as far as Spain. As the classical ancients were as much given to introducing game as we are, it seems possible that the bird was in Greece, Spain and Ital}^ and the islands only an exotic after all, so that it is less surprising that it has failed to maintain itself. Even in India, though such a well- known bird, it has its definite limits ; it is only found in the northern provinces, and does not descend into Kattywar or BLACK PARTRIDGE 231 below Orissa. Nor does it inhabit the hills above 7,000 feet, and to this elevation it only attains via the river valleys. It is also a bird of cover and cultivation, eschewing desert tracts, and affecting especially the sides of rivers where there is a thick growth of grass and tamarisk, as well as thin jungle, even scrub on very dry ground ; away from some sort of sheltering wild vegetation it is not to be found except as a straggler in most cases, though it is willing to haunt sugar-cane fields. In spite of its preference for cover, it is essentially a ground- bird, and, though in some localities it may take to a tree to call, it generally, even under the circumstances of delivering its morning message to the world, uses an ant-hill, fence, or rock as a pulpit. The call is harsh and metallic, of about half a dozen syllables, of which various renderings exist both in English and Hindustani, for there is something about the note which impels many people to try and put it into words. Hume says " Be quick, pay your debts " is about the best English version. The call is most heard in breeding-time and winter. The black partridge — although it is almost always in pairs, the family coveys only keeping together for a very short time — is very common in some localities, though, alas ! all too readily shot out. It is the best of Indian partridges as a game bird, and with the next species enjoys a somewhat similar status to the grey partridge at home, while if not quite so good as that bird on the table, it is nothing" to grumble at as a game course. It feeds, like the grey partridge, on insects, shoots, and seeds and grain, and is not always to be depended on for scrupulousness in diet when near villages, though not in this or in any way so low- caste a bird as the grey partridge. Blacks are not nearly so quarrelsome, and far less addicted to running, so that they afford really satisfactory sport ; they can be shot, according to the height of the cover, either on foot or from an elephant, and, in Hume's time, at the beginning of the eighties, fifty brace a day might be bagged by one gun, while far higher numbers are on record. This valuable bird, however, can be and has been worked for more than it is worth ; although it lays as many as a dozen eggs, it generally fails to raise more than a quarter of such a brood till 232 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS they are even three parts grown, and this is put down to persecu- tion by vermin, which are allowed to work their will unchecked in India. Proper game preservation and due consideration in shooting — it might be as well to limit the bag to the easily distinguishable cocks — ought to make this bird as abundant as our home partridge in all suitable localities. The nest is very well hidden in crops or tamarisk or grass Jungle, and is of the usual partridge t