THE ARGUS PHEASANT 



to be almost wholly devoted to the keeping of the drawing- 

 room in order, and is by no means of a quarrelsome 

 disposition. In some parts of Tenasserim the Argus 

 Pheasant is quite a common bird, and many males are found 

 inhabiting the same forest district. If a gun be fired, every- 

 one of the birds within hearing begins to call, and on any 

 alarm or excitement, such as a troop of monkeys passing 

 overhead, they immediately give vent to their note, which 

 sounds like ' how-how ! ' repeated ten or a dozen times. This 

 note is given out at short intervals when the male is in 

 its clearing, and is answered by every other male in the 

 vicinity. Mr Davison says that the female has quite a 

 different note, which sounds like ' how-owoo, how-owoo ! ' 

 the last syllable much prolonged, repeated ten or a dozen 

 times, but getting more and more rapid, until it ends in a 

 series of ' owoos ' run together. The call-notes of both the male 

 and female Argus travel to an immense distance, that of the 

 former especially being heard at a distance of a mile or more. 

 "The 'drawing-room' consists of some open level spot, 

 sometimes chosen down in a dark, gloomy ravine, entirely 

 surrounded and shut in by dense cane-brakes and rank 

 vegetation ; sometimes on the top of a hill where the jungle 

 is comparatively open, from which the male bird clears 

 everything in the shape of dead leaves or weeds for the space 

 of 6 or 8 yards square, until nothing but the bare earth 

 remains, and thereafter he keeps this place scrupulously clean, 

 carefully removing every dead leaf or twig that may happen 

 to fall on it from the trees above. The food of the Argus 

 consists chiefly of fallen fruit, as well as of ants, slugs and 

 insects. The birds feed in the early morning, and all come 

 down to the water to drink about ten or eleven a.m., and the 

 males then retire to look after their drawing-room for the rest 

 of the day. 



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