134 NATURAL HISTORY. 



birds, Fire-backed Pheasants, Ground Cuckoos, and even Pittas, or Ant-Thrushes. Within recent 

 years the Argus has been successfully brought over to Europe, and has even bi'ed in the Zoological 

 Gardens, though the eggs have to be hatched under a domestic fowl, as the female does not always 

 .show a disposition to sit. The number of eggs in confinement appears to be two, and the young have 

 proved to be excessively difficult to rear. Two, however, lived for some time in the Zoological 

 Gardens in the Regent's Park, and the male chick could be recognised from the female at an early 

 .stage by his larger size and brighter colour. They begin to fly very early, and when only four or five 

 days old could mount a high perch, and rest under the wing of the old bird. 



THE SECOND SUB-FAMILY OF THE PHASIANID^E, OR PHEASANTS. 

 THE TRUE PHEASANTS (PJuuianwat). 



This is much the largest of the three sub-families, and contains all the Impeyan Pheasants, or 

 Monauls, the Firebacks, and the Pheasants proper, of which the Common Pheasant is a type, and 

 indeed all the members of the family not included in the Peacocks or the Guinea-fowls. By far the 

 most splendid of this group of Pheasants are the Monauls (Lophopkorua), which inhabit the hill- 

 ranges of the Himalayas and Assam, as far east as western China, but always high up in the 

 mountains. An excellent observer, under the signature of " Ornithognomon," has given a very good 

 account of this Impeyan Pheasant, or Monaul of the Himalayas : 



" The Monaul ranges high in the mountains, where it is found keeping near the line of snow? 

 and, although met with in the ridges next the plains, becomes much more numerous farther in the 

 mountains. It frequents the entire range of the Himalaya, from Afghanistan to Sikkim, but does not 

 extend along the great branch running south through Burmah and Malayana. Its range in elevation 

 varies according to season ; but in the severest winter it does not appear to descend below 6,000 feet 

 above sea level. I have seen numbers in Nepaul in winter, brought with other kinds of Pheasants by 

 the Botias for sale in the plains of India, where they soon perish when the hot weather begins. The 

 gradiial increase of our hill stations in the Himalaya, and the unwearying excursions of our sportsmen, 

 are driving these birds from the vicinity of our settlements into the more inaccessible mountains of the 

 interior. Formerly, about Mussouri and Landour, it was not thought a great feat to bag a few in a day's 

 work ; but now they have to be sought much farther. They are forest birds, and difficult to be found 

 in summer, when vegetation is profuse, unless by ascending to the highest limits of the forest, when 

 shots may be obtained in the open downs above, and amongst the rocks and thin herbage near the 

 snow. In autumn, as the underwood decays, they descend and scatter through the woods, sometimes 

 in great numbers, and seek lower levels as the winter advances, and the soil becomes frozen. At such 

 times they draw near to the small villages, perched on the lower spurs and above the sheltered valleys, 

 and seek their food in the fields, where the mountaineers, with their large hoes, have dug up the soil. 

 In these seasonal migrations it has been remarked that the females and young birds descend lowest, 

 and approach nearest to human habitations. The old birds are shyer and wilder, and many remain 

 high up, even where the ground is deeply covered with snow. 



" They appear to be either capricious in their rambles through the woods, or are actuated to 

 particular spots at particular times, for reasons not apparent. Sometimes the sportsman will put up 

 in one part of the forest fifteen or twenty in the space of four or five acres. In another portion he 

 may keep on flushing, for the rest of the day, single birds feeding in solitude far apart. At no time 

 are they gregarious ; and whenever alarmed, they rise and escape independently of each other. In 

 some parts only cock birds are found, in others only hens and these last, as before remarked, 

 together with young birds, always nearest to habitations, and in opener slopes of the mountains, more 

 accessible to the sportsman. Severity of cold and scarceness of food have their taming effects on the 

 Monaul, as on other birds ; and the lower the snow the easier the task of making a bag. But, in 

 fact, the Monaul is not nearly so wild as the Tragopan, the Euplocamus, the Polyplectron, the 

 Macartneya, and other genera of Pea-fowl and hill Pheasants. Its habits are more open ; and instead 

 of skulking in such impermeable cover as is described in niy remarks on Polyplectron tibetanus (or 

 Chinquis), it walks about pretty openly in forest glades clear of underwood. At the same time it must 

 be observed that the absence of cover enables it to espy the sportsman at a distance ; and it takes to 

 wing frequently out of shot, which I have never seen any other bird of this family do. When on the 



