INDIAN CRIMSON TRAGOPAN 205 



Yunnan, Kouycheou, and the highest hills of Eastern Tibet. 

 It especially frequents the clumps of wild bamboos which 

 grow at an altitude of 2,000 to 3,000 metres, and the shoots 

 of these are its favourite food ; indeed, it is from this that 



its Chinese name of Seng-ky (shoot-fowl) is derived 



In the wild state it shows a very jealous disposition and will not 

 allow the golden pheasant, its only possible rival, to approach 

 the locality in which it resides ; and so one never meets those 

 two brilliantly coloured pheasants on the same hill or in the 

 same valley." Another clerical authority, quoted by Hume, 

 says that Amherst pheasants, when they find springes baited with 

 grain laid for tlieiu, are said by the Chinese to try to sweep the 

 corn away with their huge tails so as to feed safely on it. This 

 sounds rather a tall statement, as Hume evidently thought, but 

 it is quite possible that the Amherst cock, one of the most 

 irritable birds in a very peppery family, may, in his anger at 

 being kept from coveted food by an obstruction which he fears, 

 may play round the snare with expanded sweeping tail as he would 

 round a hen ; for this species, like probably most birds, assumes 

 more or less the so-called courting attitude under strong euiotion 

 such as anger. Of course any native onlooker at this performance, 

 if it occurs, would naturally credit the bird with an intelligent 

 motive. If some corn were actually swept away in this manner, 

 it would indeed be probable that the bird would learn to act 

 intelligently in the asserted direction. The birds, as above 

 remarked, breed freely in captivity, and their eggs are buff. 



Indian Crimson Tragopan. 



Geriornis satyra. Munal, Hindustani. 



The wonderfully rich plumage of the cock crimson tragopan, 

 whose red under-parts spotted with white, and the similar speck- 

 ling on his marbled brown back, make him look like a glorified 

 guinea-fowl, is a certain and striking distinction of his species ; 

 the hen is a brown bird, the plumage on close inspection being 

 seen to be a grizzly pepper and ginger mixture, with more of 

 the dark colour above and more of the buff below, but without 



