50 SECURING A TROUBLESOME SPECIMEN. 



when the sun, after gilding the higher peaks, rose over the 

 sea of mist, which began to heave and toss itself into huge 

 billows, as it were, until it gradually wreathed itself about the 

 hill we were on, and enveloped us in its cold damp folds. 



As I was sure the " cheer " must be somewhere on the hill, 

 I was determined not to be beaten by them ; so the third morn- 

 ing I took two or three men with me to mark the birds from 

 below, in case they flew downwards before it was light enough 

 for us to see them from above, as I thought they must have 

 done on the previous mornings. I had in some way mis- 

 taken the hour, and reached the ground much too early; 

 consequently we had to wait there shivering with cold until 

 daybreak. As the first streak of light appeared, the cheer 

 began their whistling call as usual, and still our search for 

 them was fruitless. When it grew light enough to communi- 

 cate with the markers, we learnt from them that the whole 

 brood had flown from the top of the hill, and had lighted in 

 some broken bushy ground below. We had beaten all over 

 this, and I was just about to give up the pursuit as hopeless, 

 when one of the men flung a stone into some bushes where we 

 had marked down a black partridge, and out flew a cock-cheer. 

 The sly old rascal gave me a long shot, but a single pellet in 

 the head at last secured me my troublesome specimen. A 

 good dog, had I then possessed one, would have probably done 

 in an hour what I took so long to accomplish without one. I 

 may here, by way of parenthesis, remark that dogs kept in 

 these mountains very frequently end in becoming food for a 

 leopard. I have known a leopard so bold as to take a dog 

 actually from the doorstep of a room in which his master was 

 dining, and the table attendant passing constantly to and 

 from the kitchen outside through the doorway. This hap- 

 pened at the travellers' bungalow at Ramgarh, in Kumaon. 



Another bird of the pheasant tribe is the "koklass." It is to 

 be found in almost every oak-forest, where its loud crow may 

 often be heard in the early morning. The handsome plumage 



