/•///; (,.IMK nillDS OF IMJlA, 343 



"to briiifj to ba<r\vhpu once found. One imnoincs that such m 

 " magnificent bird must be extremely conspicuous wherever 

 " foimd, but such is by no means the case, and I have more than 

 " once stared at a motionless bird some seconds belbre I could 

 " make it oiit. The stunted and tliinly foliaged cakes which 

 "are scattered about at some distance I'rom each other e^ive such 

 " a queer dappling of light and shade under the blazing Indian 

 " sun that the outline of even glaring white objects cannot be 

 " made out at once, and the bioken black and white of the 

 " Pheasants' back assimilates well with the waving grass and the 

 " shivering broken shadows of the oak-leaves. Every breath 

 " of wind which stirs grass and leaves alters your view, and it 

 '• i? not until the bird lushes headlong away in the open or 

 " skulks, head and tail down like some wild beast, into the 

 " nearest raspberry tangle that you grasp the fact that you 

 " have let a pheasant getaway. 



" Of course, once they are on the wing they can be seen and 

 " heard from a great distance, but e^ en under these circuni- 

 " stances I have been sometimes so sti-uck with their beauty 

 " that I have failed to fire until too late. 



"One of my first encounters with these birds was when 

 " working over the crest of a grass ridge with my sepoys, we 

 " suddenly put up a covey of full-grown birds, and I v^as so 

 " fully occupied in watching these streaks of silver loveliness 

 " that I omitted to fire at all, and the whole lot — I think there 

 " were 7 ov 8 — disappeared, unharmed down the hill into a 

 "ravine with tree and dense undergrowth. 



" Often we used to hear these Pheasants moving in front of 

 " us as our scouts worked through the grass on either side of 

 " our track the main body of our men were following, but we 

 " very seldom put them up within sight. When we were 

 " working up-hill they continued to run ahead of us until they 

 " had crossed the ridge or crest of the hill to our front, and 

 " then, when out of sight, they took to wing with much fluster 

 "and noise. 



" We noticed they always ran up-hill and flew down, and 

 " always seemed to make for the highest point in the vicinity 

 " before taking to flight. 



" As on the occasion of which I just wrote we several times 

 " came on coveys of full-grown cock birds without a single 

 '• hen anywhere near that we could see ; it may have been that 

 •'the hens had skulked away on foot, but I think not, for 

 " the sound of the running birds could be followed very clearly 

 '• when the grass and fallen leaves were dry and rustly. 



" They crowed much like the common English Pheasant, 

 ■but a shorter, deeper sound. I never ii^mv them crowing. 



