212 INDIAN SPOKTING BIEDS 



assumption that birds of this kind must be ground-breeders. 

 Those that have been taken are dull freckled buff; six were in 

 the clutch, and May was the month in which they were taken, 

 at the western limit of the bird's range in Hazara. They were 

 on the ground, in a spot where a landslip had carried away a bit 

 of pine-forest, covered with small second growth of bushes and 

 shrubs ; the nest was a rough structure of grass and sticks. No 

 doubt if old pigeons' and squirrels' nests are investigated in 

 this tragopan's haunts, the eggs will be more easily found. 



Grcy-brcastcd or Blyth's Tragopan. 



Tragopan blythi. Sansaria, Assamese. 



The grey-breasted tragopan is distinguished at once from 

 our other species by the spotless smoke-grey of the under-parts, 

 although the upper plumage is mottled much as in our other 

 species, and the neck is of the same red ; the fleshy horns are 

 also of the usual blue, but the face-skin is bright rich yellow, 

 bordered with green where it ends on the throat. Although I 

 have seen the bird alive, I have never witnessed its display, so 

 cannot give the colour of the bib, which of course can only be 

 properly seen in the live bird. 



Although rather smaller the hen is very similar to that of 

 the crimson tragopan, but the under plumage is less rich in 

 tint, and there is more of the black peppering in the grizzled 

 brown of the upper plumage. 



Little is known of this beautiful bird, although it was 

 described by Jerdon as long ago as 1869 ; it is best known from 

 the Naga Hills, though it also ranges into Manipur and Cachar, 

 and has been reported from the Daphla Hills also. The Nagas, 

 who know it by the name of gnu, are in the habit of catching 

 it " by laying a line of snares across a ravine which they are 

 known to frequent, and then, with a large circle of beaters, 

 driving the birds down to them. They go as quietly as possible, 

 so as not to frighten the birds sufficiently to make them take 

 flight, as if not much alarmed they prefer running." This bird's 

 habits are, in fact, evidently much the same as those of other 



