SINO-MONGOLIAN FRONTIER 



fat woodcock burst out of some thick coppice 

 of young pines and went rocketing away, some- 

 times falling to one or other of the guns. 



Presently, as we worked down a long ridge, the 

 unearthly and awe-inspiring cry of the eared 

 pheasant {Crossoptilon manchuricum) rang out 

 from a clump of pines on the opposite slope, to be 

 taken up and thrown back from several other 

 points in the underbrush. To my companions 

 the peculiar noise was new, but to me it was a 

 familiar sound, though I was surprised to hear it 

 in this locality. 



How well I remember my first experience of 

 that fearsome call, or rather series of calls. I was 

 at the time away in the high mountains of Western 

 Shansi, and was stalking a deer through a dense 

 forest, when the noise rang out within a few yards 

 of me, echoing through the dark arches of the 

 pines and sending cold shivers down my back. I 

 did not then discover the perpetrator of the dis- 

 cordant cries. Later when I was out in Kansu, 

 and was traversing some dark and wooded gorges 

 high up in the Lu-p'an mountains, I was again 

 startled by the same indescribable sound, which 

 seemed to issue from the throat of some fearsome 

 beast of prey lurking in the gloomy depths of those 

 mountain gorges. It was not till the winter of 

 1909, while on the expedition dealt with in the 

 foregoing chapter, that I discovered it was the 

 eared-pheasant's challenge which had so startled 



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