Indian Game-Birds and Wildfowl 



is as beautiful as the cock, and so has progressed 

 further along the path to perfection than the 

 sombre mate of the more familiar bird. Along 

 with the peafowls we find the jungle-fowls, the 

 red species, the ancestor of that old companion 

 of man, gallant chanticleer, plumaged gules and 

 sable, and most savagely spurred, as befits the 

 gallant knight he is ; and the grey bird of the 

 south of India, with his gold-bedropped hackle 

 so beloved of salmon-fly makers, to say nothing 

 of the orange-red and purple wild cock of Ceylon. 

 Above the plains and foot-hills which form the 

 territory of these range the Kaleege pheasants, 

 near relatives of the exquisite silver pheasant of 

 our aviaries, and, alas ! just as useless for sport. 

 Above them some birds have their being which 

 recall in make and habits our pheasants at home ; 

 the triple-crested koklass, swift in flight and ex- 

 cellent in flavour, and the dull-plumaged but 

 long-tailed cheer, a denizen of bushy-ledged pre- 

 cipices, down which he parachutes madly when 

 disturbed by the sportsman. 



Other noble game of the deciduous jungles of 

 the hills are the strange tragopans, the com- 

 monest one horned and gorgeted azure, with the 

 guinea-fowl's pearl-markings of plumage on a 

 ground of richest crimson ; and the grandest of 

 all, the Monaul or Impeyan pheasant, with 



plumage of a humming-bird's radiance on a body 



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