108 THE INTRODUCTION OF A NEW GAME-BIRD INTO ESSEX.
not for the absence of a tail, and cock and hen in this respect are
alike. When flying, however, it is readily distinguished by the
brick-red colour of its wings, as well as by the greater length of neck,
and a trick the bird has when frightened of sticking up its crest
feathers like a cockatoo. It is capital eating, more like a landrail
than any other English bird. The flesh is quite white. The food of
the Tinamu is somewhat varied; nothing comes amiss, field mice,
sparrows (killed while trying to steal the Tinamu's food in confine-
ment), corn, grass-seeds, bread, onions, thistle-tops, insects of all
kinds, and roots of the arum and bluebell, the latter being especially
liked. The eggs he describes as about the size of a hen's, but the
colour that of a purple plum with the bloom rubbed off. In Essex,
he says, it nests chiefly in the barley, wheat, or grassy hedgerows,
laying from seven to ten eggs at a time, and sometimes (he believes)
lays a second batch. The nest, hardly worthy the name, consists
merely of a few grass straws in a standing crop of barley. So far as
can be observed (whether tame reared or wild) the young manifest
no disposition ,to remain with the mother, or foster mother as the
case may be, but go in for wild independence from the first, chasing
every insect they see.7 The "clucking" of the hen does not attract
them in the least, and, in a wild state, the parent bird is never seen
with much of a following.
As to whether the cockbird alone incubates, as has been stated
from observation at the Zoological Gardens, where this species has
on several occasions bred,8 Mr. Bateman hesitates to express an
opinion, the fact being that externally the sexes are so much alike as
to be indistinguishable, except at pairing time, or by the difference in
their notes as already described.
After the covey of eleven birds had been turned out on the Bright-
lingsea Marshes, Mr. Bateman issued a printed notice in which he
expressed a hope that his neighbours, and sportsmen generally in
Essex, would refrain (at all events for a season or two) from shooting
the birds should they wander off his land. Their greatest enemies,
however, proved to be foxes, and to these wily poachers a great many
of the birds fell victims. Mr. Bateman is too good a sportsman to
destroy the foxes in his county, much as he desires to save his
Tinamus, but he very naturally complains if hounds do not visit him
7 One chick on the day of hatching made a regular crusade against the "black beetles" in the
keepers house.
8 It bred eight times to the end of 1868. See Bartlett, P.Z.S., 1867, p. 687 ; 1868, pp. 114,116;
1869, p. 628.