THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 366 



" fifter these birds, I cannot, speak with much authority on 

 "this point. When aligliting after the first flight, they often 

 " run considerable distances, but at others one may put a 

 "bird up lime after time from almost the exact spot at which 

 '• he drops. 



" They are such beautiful birds that their very beauty has 

 "sometimes saved their lives when 1 have really wanted them 

 " very badly ; their skins as specimens and their ilesh for the 

 " pot. To see half a dozen cock birds rise almost at one's 

 "feet and then scatter in all directions, the wonderful blue and 

 " white feathers of their rumps shewing up like flags against 

 " the rest of the brilliant plumage, is a most extraordinary 

 " sioht, and I have tound the blaze of colour so gorgeous and 

 " attractive that 1 have sometimes been arrested m the very 

 " act of raising my gun to fire, and have instead stood to 

 " watch them and enjoy the sight. 



" I think wherever 1 have found this bird there have been 

 " outcrops of rock here and thtre in the grass they frequent. 

 " In some cases these outcrops are scattered and tew, but in 

 " some cases very thick and plentiful, so that the patches of 

 " grass form little roads in between them. 



" The only sound I have heard them make, and which I 

 " can with certainty attribute to them is a low grunting call, 

 " exactly the same as that made by Fhasianus hurmaniiicus, a 

 "bird I'knew well in the South-East of these Hills." 

 The discovery of this beautiful Pheasant by Hume in 79 was 

 always considered by him to be one of the, if not the, most im- 

 portant and interesting of his numerous discoveries. His atlention 

 in the first place was drawn to some feathers in the head-dress of 

 a Manipuri Official sent to assist him in getting about in Manipur, 

 which he at once saw belonged to a J'heasant unknown to him. 

 These he was told were feathers from a bird called Loe-nin-Koi 

 which occuired in the extreme South of the Manipur territory and 

 in the Eastern Lushai country. It was weeks, however, beibre he 

 succeeded in going with a small force of Manipuris into the 

 Kamhow district, and even then it was only with the greatest 

 ditticulty that some Kamhow refugees were induced by a mixture 

 of threats and promises to secure for him two specimens, one of 

 which was alive. 



Of the living specimen Hume wrote : 



"The live bird, though a full-grown cock, became perfectly 



" tame in a few days, and a great favourite in the camp. It 



" would eat bread, boiled rice, winged wdiite-ants, moths, 



" taking them gingerly out of our hands." 



Unfortunately this bird was eventually killed in a fire, so never 



reached its destination, the London Zoological Gardens. 



