194 INDIAN SPOETING BIEDS 



Her crest is quite well developed, though not so large as the 

 cock's. ' 



In Tenasserim, Davidson found this bird associating in small 

 parties, consisting of a male with his harem, though solitary' 

 males sometimes occurred ; they always kept to the cover of the 

 evergreen forests, and scratched a good deal. Their food was 

 the usual mixed diet of pheasants — leaves, berries, and insects. 

 When alarmed, the covey ran off together, but could be put up 

 by a dog, when they would fly strongly for a couple of hundred 

 yards and then settle and begin to run again. 



The cocks frequently challenged in the usual manner of the 

 group, by whirring with their wings ; and that they are as 

 wantonly vicious in their wild state as they are in captivity was 

 proved by Davison having seen one repeatedly drive a cock argus 

 from his bachelor sanctum ; the poor bird, though he would 

 come back at the bully's whirring challenge, being naturally 

 afraid to stand up to his formidably armed and active antagonist. 



Besides the wing-buzzing, the cocks have a vocal alarm-note, 

 which Davison compares to that of the big black-backed squirrel 

 (Sciurus bicolor), that fine fellow as big as a cat which is so 

 conspicuous in the forests ; the heiis also have the same sharp 

 cry. The egg is known to be buff, and very like some hen's eggs, 

 as these birds have laid in captivity ; but no eggs seem to have 

 been taken in the wild state, although the breeding-season 

 appears to be known, and is said to be in the monsoon. 



White Eared-Pheasant. 



Crossoptilum tihetanum. 



This beautiful large white pheasant, with its snowy loose 

 plumage so well set off by its purple-glossed tail and red face and 

 legs, has never been actually taken in British territory, though 

 it is suspected of occurring on some of the Bhutan passes. It is 

 really a Tibetan and Chinese bird, and Hume was induced to 

 figure it chiefly in order to reproduce a copy of the figure of it 

 given by Hodgson, who described it in 1838, and to quote his 

 description, whiah was buried in one of the earlier volumes of 

 the Asiatic Society's Journal. 



