234 Allen's naturalist's library. 



" In severe weather numbers may be heard calling in 

 different quarters of the wood before they retire to roost. The 

 call has a rather melancholy sound, or it may be that, as the 

 shades of a dreary winter's evening begin to close on the snow- 

 covered hills around, the cold and cheerless aspect of Nature, 

 with which it seems quite in unison, makes it appear so. 



" From April to the commencement of the cold season, the 

 Moonal, though there is nothing of cunning or artifice in its 

 nature, is rather wild and shy, but this gives way to the all- 

 taming influence of winter's frosts and snows ; and from 

 October it gradually becomes less and less wild, until it may 

 be said to be almost tame, but as it is often found in places 

 nearly free from underwood, and never attempts to escape 

 observation by concealing itself in the grass or bushes, it is 

 perhaps sooner alarmed, and at a greater distance, than other 

 Pheasants, and may, therefore, appear to a casual observer at 

 all times a little wild and timid. . . . 



" It gets up with a loud fluttering, and a rapid succession of 

 shrill screeching whistles, often continued till it alights, when 

 it occasionally commences its ordinary loud and plaintive call 

 and continues it for some time. 



" In winter, when one or two birds have been flushed, all 

 within hearing soon get alarmed; if they are collected together, 

 they get up in rapid succession ; if distantly scattered, bird 

 after bird slowly gets up, the shrill call of each as it rises 

 alarming others still farther off", till all in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood have risen. In the chestnut-forests, where they 

 often collect in large flocks, and where there is little under- 

 wood, and the trees, thinly dispersed and entirely stripped of 

 their leaves, allow of an extensive view through the wood, I 

 have often stood till twenty or thirty have got up and alighted 

 in the surrounding trees, and have then walked up to the 

 different trees and fired at those I wished to procure without 

 alarming the rest, only those very close to the one fired at 

 being disturbed at each report. . . . 



