198 INDIAN SPOETING BIRDS 



covert, and also eat moss, seeds, and flowers, and especially buds 

 and leaves, but not grain ; they are not easy subjects for cap- 

 tivity, and are seldom kept, whence no doubt it comes that there 

 is, apparently, no description of the cock's display extant, They 

 do not breed lower than 5,000 feet, but may do so at twice 

 that elevation, laying, with practically no preparation, on the 

 ground under a rock or root, or in cover, buff eggs which fall 

 into two types, the finely and uniformly speckled or the boldly 

 blotched, the markings in both cases being reddish-brown ; 

 the eggs also vary much in size, but average about two inches 

 long. Some are much like those of our British black-game. 

 Nine is the usual number, and May the usual laying month. 

 Both cock and hen keep with the brood, and the young cocks 

 get their colour in the first season, the young being well grown 

 by September. 



Cheer Pheasant. 



*Catreus wallichi. Cheer, Hindustani, 



The Cheer Pheasant, although his colours have none of that 

 brilliancy which one associates witli pheasants, especially those 

 with the typical long pointed tail which he exhibits in perfec- 

 tion, having this appendage sometimes two feet long, is never- 

 theless a very recognizable bird, not only among our Indian 

 game-birds, but anywhere, for he is the only pheasant known 

 which combines a long pointed tail with a crest also long and 

 pointed ; and the female, though shorter in both tail and crest, 

 yet has them enough developed to be recognizable. 



Although there is plenty of difference in detail between the 

 cock and hen Cheer Pheasants, their general appearance is far 

 more alike than that of the two sexes of pheasants in general, both 

 showing black, grey, white, buff, and brown in their plumage ; the 

 most noticeable differences are at the two ends, the cock having a 

 plain dirty-white neck below his drab cap, while the hen, with 

 the same head colouring, has the neck below the throat more 

 black than white, though the colours are mixed ; her tail, also, 



* PJiasianus on plate. 



