896 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HLST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXVI. 



General habits. — This bird lives at an altitiide considerably lower 

 than that generally affected by this genus ; 9,000 feet forms its 

 tipper limit ov^er the greater part of the Barail Range, but it dovibt- 

 less wanders higher in the Eastern Naga Hills, and the higher 

 peaks of the Patkoi Range. On the other hand, it is constantly 

 found as low down as 5,000 feet even in summer, and round Fort 

 White in the Chin Hills is common at this elevation. 



As far as I can ascertain, it does not move up and down the hills 

 in summer and winter, but is more or less resident at the same ele- 

 vation throughout the 3'ear. This is doubtless due to the fact that 

 nowhere except in the extreme North-East are the hills it frequents 

 high enough to come within snow limits. 



It is a bird which keeps much to dense forest and prefers such 

 as has thick undergrowth and is of a broken rocky nature. Over 

 most of its range it is of a very shy retiring nature, but Venning 

 records that in the Chin Hills it is so bold and so stupid that an 

 officer was able to knock one over with a stone after he had had 

 several shots at it. 



The iirst occasion on which I ever saw this grand Game-bird was 

 described by me in Beebe's " Pheasants ", and so little is known 

 of it that I venture to quote this again in full : — 



" Although common in parts of the Naga Hill's Ranges, at 

 elevations over 6,000 feet, Blyth's Tragopan is but a rare 

 straggler into the adjoining ranges of North Oachar, and it 

 was, therefore, some years after 1 was first posted to that dis- 

 trict before I came across it in a wild state. 



" When at last I did see it, the meeting was most unex- 

 pected, for at the time I had no idea that this magnificent 

 pheasant ever wandered so low as 6,000 feet, the elevation at 

 which I was then camping. 



" The country surrounding m}^ camp was of a very broken 

 and rugged character ; the main range of hills, known as the Barail 

 Range, running almost due North-East and South-West, and 

 having on either side two rapidly flowing hill streams, to the 

 West the Jennam and to the East the Jiri. These streams, though 

 full of Mahseer, and magnificent from an Isaac-Waltonian point 

 of view, were too small, except in their lower reaches, during 

 the cold season, even for the use of dug-outs. In the rains, 

 on the other hand, they formed mad torrents of muddy water, 

 hurling themselves from rock to rock in a blinding spray of 

 yellow foam ; or pouring themselves in a headlong tumult over 

 broken rapids or actual water-falls. Ear above these streams 

 which in the distance look like silver ribbons, towered the 

 crests of Mahadeo, Hengmai, Hungrum, and other mountain 

 peaks, narrow spurs jutting from their sides and running down 

 into the valleys beneath. At the feet of these mountains the 



