INDIAN CRIMSON TRAGOPAN 207 



buds, berries, and leaves, since leaves, especially of aromatic 

 kinds, and wild fruit, form a portion of the food, as well as 

 bamboo-shoots, insects, and bulbs ; though in confinement it 

 will eat grain, it does not seem to seek it in a wild state. 



Although eggs have been taken in Kumaun in May, not 

 much is on record about the breeding of this bird in the wild 

 state, no doubt because people naturally expect such birds to 

 nest on the ground, whereas evidence obtained from birds kept 

 in captivity shows that they are really tree-breeders. Mr. St. 

 Quintin, who has paid particular attention to tragopans and 

 kept three out of the five known species, finds they require 

 elevated nesting-sites, such as old wood pigeons' nests and plat- 

 forms put up in trees, which they line with a few twigs. A hen 

 of this very species even made a scanty nest of her own with 

 spruce twigs and branches, so that in looking for tragopans' 

 nests one's motto evidently ought to be "Excelsior." The eggs 

 are larger than ordinary Indian fowls' eggs, and not unlike them 

 except for a few pale dull markings of a lilac tint. They take 

 twenty-nine days to hatch. 



The chicks are uniform reddish-brown above, not striped, 

 and have the wing-feathers showing when hatched ; they perch 

 at once, and can fly in a few days. This looks as if they might 

 spend some of their early life aloft ; perhaps the hen feeds them, 

 as the cock does her when courting. This same courtship of 

 the cock is very curious ; he has two quite distinct displays, an 

 unusual trait in any bird. The most commonly seen is a side- 

 way one, the bird flattening himself out sideways, as it were, by 

 expanding the feathers of one side of the body above and below, 

 much as the common pheasant does. In this way the white spots 

 become as conspicuous as possible, but there is no change in 

 the face. In the full display, which is very rarely seen, the 

 bird squats down on his heels with head erect and plumage 

 puffed out, flaps his wings with a convulsive movement, showing 

 off the intense red on the pinion-joints, and makes a noise like 

 a motor-car starting. At the same time, with jerks of the head, 

 the dewlap is let down and expands, not vertically like a turkey's, 

 but horizontally, forming a bib as large as a lady's palm, of the 

 most intense blue in the middle, and pure azure at the sides. 



