File:Indian sporting birds (1915) (14564173127).jpg

Identifier: indiansportingbi00finn (find matches)
Title: Indian sporting birds
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Finn, Frank, 1868-1932 Hume, Allan Octavian, 1829-1912 Marshall, Charles Henry Tilson, 1841-
Subjects: Birds -- India Game and game-birds -- India
Publisher: London : Francis Edwards
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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shoots,berries and insects that form, as it were, the standard naturalfood of pheasants. Although three, four, or a dozen may be found near eachother, the birds are not really gregarious, and when breedinggo in pairs; moreover, the cocks are exceedingly pugnacious toeach other. Their challenge, common to all the group, is apeculiar drumming made by rapidly whirring the wings. Thecall is a sharp tweet-tweet or whistling chuckle, given out onrising, and continued excitedly when the bird is treed by someterrestrial foe. When thus treed the kalij is far from beingbrought to book, for it often keeps a wary eye open, and whendiscovered will drop down on the wrong side of the tree for thegunner and make off. Its flight is exceedingly fast, but it travelsfast 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 anynumber, and so falls under the head of casual game rather thana regular sporting bird. I can find no note on its edible
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NEPAL KALIJ 185 qualities, but the group generally are not better eating thanordinary 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, accordingto elevation, from early in April to late in June. The nest iswell hidden in low cover, such as grass or fern, but is very slightas a rule. The sitting is usually nine, and the colour is someshade of buff. They are about the size of small hens eggs.The hen sits, says Hume, for rather over three weeks, and thecock keeps with her and the brood till they are nearly full grown.The mature weight of this bird, by the way, is rather over twopounds in the cock and about half a pound less in the hen. Inthe North-west Himalayas the sexes are discriminated by name—Kalesiir, applying to the cock, and Kalesi to the hen, whileKolsa is the Punjabi and Chamba name for the species. Aswild hybrids are very rare in India, it is worth mentioning thatHume once shot a male bird whi

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