Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/246

 On another occasion an egg was obtained, after an hour's arduous labour, from a mound fifteen feet high, and sixty feet in circumference. As usual, it was so enveloped in dense trees, as to exclude the rays of the sun from its surface; yet its interior felt quite warm. The egg is nearly as large as that of a swan; it is white, but tinged by the soil of a dingy brown hue.

The Jungle-fowl seems to be confined to the thickets near the sea. It is always seen in pairs or singly; its food consists of roots, which it scratches up with great facility, and of seeds, berries, and large beetles. It flies heavily and awkwardly, with much whirring of its hollow wings. The native's imitation of its note was like the clucking of the domestic fowl, ending with a scream like that of the peacock.

(Pheasants.) The extensive Family at which we are now arrived contains birds of large size, imposing aspect, and magnificent plumage; and as the flesh of all is in good esteem, it is the most important of all to man. Some of its members have been kept in a state of domestication for so long a period that history and tradition have both failed to fix its commencement: thus the earliest Greek poets recognise the common Fowl and the Peacock as well known birds, whose introduction was unrecorded; while the European possession of the Pheasant is carried by them back to a fabulous