File:Indian sporting birds (1915) (14750342182).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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the sarus crane,is rather a bird for the aviculturist than the sportsman ; if onewants to eat small birds, larks would be more worth shootingboth for sport and for eating purposes. Besides the name Dabki,which means squatter, this little bird rejoices in several others—Tiirra, Libbia and Ghimnaj, in Hindustani; Telia dabbagimdluin Telugu, and Darioi at Katnagiri. Yet we are told thatnatives, unless professional bird-catchers, generally consider itsimply as a young quail of sorts, and certainly it has all theappearance of a young bird which ought to grow up into some-thing quite different. Nicobar Megapode. Megapodius nicobariensis. Megapode means big foot, and our single species, likeHercules, can be identified by its foot only, though, as it onlyinhabits the Nicobars, and the only other game-bird there isthe local race of yellow-legged button-quail, which is neither bigin body nor in foot, there is not much likelihood of anyonegetting it often or mistaking it for anything else. K ^
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NICOBAR MEGAPODE 275 The bird itself is about as big as a jungle hen, and has thesides of the head red and bare like a fowls, but its very shorttail gives it rather the appearance of a guinea-fowl. Itsplumage is unique among our game-birds by its very dulness,there being not a single streak or spot to relieve its monotony ofsnuffy-brown. The sexes are alike, and even the chicks hardlydiffer except by having downy heads. It is about all they dohave downy, for they come out of the egg full-fledged, as is theusual custom of birds of the megapode family; their habits arewell known in Australia, where not only a similar bird to this,locally called jungle-fowl, but others of more distinct andhandsome appearance, the brush-turkey (Catheturus lathami),and mallee-bird (Leipoa ocellata) are found. The type,indeed, is an Australian one, but the typical Megapodius groupranges east and west among the islands, ours being the farthestoutlier to the westward. The foot of the megapode has the hind-toe

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