188 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL RLST. SOCIETY, Vol. XXV. 



more fully plumaged cocks ma_y sometimes be found in company 

 with several other birds in hen plumage, but these are, I believe, 

 merely their wives and their young ones, the latter, of course, all 

 in female plumage or in plumage which at a little distance looks 

 like that of the female. 



A very interesting little note by Mr. H. W. A. AVatson in a 

 recent numbei- of the Journal confirms this idea that the cocks are 

 monogamous. He writes : — 



" I came across a cock Kalij Pheasant (6r. horsfieldi) looking 



" after a flock of j'oung a few days old. I saw no signs of the 



" hen, though I watched the cock for several minutes. Pro- 



" bably she was absent looking for food. The cock was \ery 



" agressive, and ran round, demonstrating, often coming within 



" ten feet of me. The chicks were hiding in the leaves, one 



" within a few inches of my foot." 



According to Ci'ipps, the hen is an extraordinarily close sitter; 



on one occasion he caught a female on her nest of 4 fresh ep-o-g, and 



on a second occasion a hen bird sat tight on her nest whilst men 



were felling jungle all round her, and refused to move until the axe 



was laid to the tree at the root of which her nest was. 



This has not been my experience, though I have seen some 

 hundreds of nests. The hen bird nearl}^ alwaj^s sneaks quieth^ oft' 

 before one can catch a glimpse of her; it is only when caught 

 suddenly on the nest and unable to move without attracting atten- 

 tion that she will flatten herself out, almost close her e5^es and try 

 to escape notice. Even then, directly she discovers she has been 

 seen, and before one is within grabbing distance of her, she bolts 

 off, and on one such occasion I saw her scatter some of her 

 eggs in all directions as she flew headlong from her nest of dead 

 leaves and grasses. 



Habits. — The Black-breasted Kalij Pheasant is a bird normally 

 of the humid, hot climate between the Plains and some 1,500 feet 

 elevation ; in fact, just the sort of climate we should expect a 

 black bird of this description to live in. Of course, it wanders 

 more or less out into the plains for some fifty miles or so, and again 

 may be found as high as 6,000 feet up in the Himalayas both 

 North and South of the Brahmapootra. But, though the Plains' 

 birds may be indeed often are permanent residents therein, those 

 of the higher hills are only stragglers. I doubt if anj- birds per- 

 manently remain much above 3,000 feet, and only then where there 

 are hot, sweltering valleys with dense moist forest. 



In the Khasia Hills Ave used occasionally to find them breeding 

 aboTit Dumpep and the forests below the Shillong Cherrapoongi 

 road, somewhere about 4,000 feet elevation. The birds reared 

 here were exceptional!}' small and poor, and I thought at first that 

 the Khasia Hills were inhabited bv ft small race of Gennceus 



