410 PHASIANIDJE. 



Ceriornis melanocephalus (Gray). The Western Tragopan. 



Ceriornis melanocepliala (Gray], Jerd. JB. Ind. \\, p. 517 ; Hume, 

 Rough Draft N. % E. no. 806. 



The only eggs of the Western Tragopan that I have yet seen are 

 six sent to me by Captain Unwin from Hazara, and which were 

 taken on the 25th May, 1869, by Captain Lautour, who communi- 

 cated to him the following note : 



" I was shooting on a range of hills from 8000 to 11 ,000 feet high. 

 The Argus in parts very plentiful, the hills covered with pine- 

 forests ; and the Argus I used to find about one fourth of the height 

 of the hill from the top, and they appeared to affect the vicinity 

 and edges of snow nullahs and landslips, where there was a fair 

 quantity of undergrowth and where there were plenty of rocks. 



" At the time of finding the nest I was on the lookout for 

 Pheasants, but the ground being rather stiff I had just given up 

 my gun to the shikaree, when the bird got up almost at my feet. I 

 was going through a pine-forest, and had reached a place where an 

 avalanche or landslip had carried away all the pine-trees, and in 

 their place small bushes and shrubs resembling the hazel had sprung 

 up. I was descending into this when the bird got up, as I said 

 before, almost at my feet. The nest was on the ground, and was 

 very roughly formed of grass, small sticks, and a very few feathers ; 

 it was very carelessly built. More I did not observe, as the 

 bird having gone down close, I wanted to shoot it. 



" I did not succeed in doing this, but from the close view I had 

 of it and the attention I have since paid to all our Pheasants, I 

 have no doubt the bird was a hen Argus." 



Indian sportsmen always miscall this species and the previous 

 one the Argus. I may add that there is no earthly doubt of the 

 correctness of the identification, as there is absolutely no other bird 

 in the Western Himalayas that could have laid these eggs. 



The eggs are more or less elongated ovals, considerably com- 

 pressed towards the small end. They are, as a whole, of very much 

 the same length, but a good deal slenderer than the eggs of the 

 Moonal. The shell is fine, but almost absolutely devoid of gloss. 

 Looked at from a little distance, they appear to be of a uniform 

 colour and devoid of markings, and seem to vary from a pale cafe- 

 au-lait to a dull reddish buff ; looked into closely they appear to 

 have a somewhat lighter ground-colour, excessively finely and 

 minutely freckled and spotted with a somewhat darker shade. 

 They are the least glossy of all the true game-birds' eggs that I 

 know, and in shape and texture, though not in tint, remind one not 

 a little of those of the King Curlew and White Ibis and other birds 

 of that family. 



In length they vary from 2-4 to 2-55, and in breadth from 1-68 

 to 1*72 ; but the average of the six eggs is 2-51 by 17. 



