Tragopans 305 



and pine, and is only resorted to when other things fail. They nest on the ground 

 under bushes and grass, laying ten or twelve eggs. The other species, so far as 

 known, have similar habits. 



The Horned Pheasants, or Tragopans (Tragopan}, often misnamed Argus 

 Pheasants, are large and magnificent birds, perhaps unsurpassed by any other 

 members of the group in the beauty and perfect harmony of coloration. With 

 the sides of the head nearly or quite naked, the males are provided with a short 

 crest, an erectile, fleshy horn inserted just above each eye, and a large, brightly 

 colored, apron-like wattle on the throat, which, during the breeding season hangs 

 down for several inches, but becomes scarcely visible in winter. The five known 

 species occur in the higher wooded mountains of northern India and China, 

 the handsomest and best-known being the Crimson Tragopan (T. satyra). At- 

 taining a length of twenty- six inches, of which the tail makes up nearly ten inches, 

 the male, to quote from Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, has the crown and sides of the head 

 black ; the sides of the crown and longer crest-feathers, mantle and under parts 

 orange-carmine, and the remainder of the upper parts olive-brown, each feather 

 near the tip with a rounded spot of white, edged with black, while the wing-coverts 

 are edged with orange-carmine, the tail black, barred with buff, the horns green- 

 ish blue, and the throat wattle orange or salmon-color, with blue cross-bars. 

 The female, which is only about twenty inches long, is black above, mottled and 

 spotted with buff, the chin and throat whitish and sandy buff beneath, finely 

 mottled with black and whitish shaft-spots. The Crimson Tragopan is essen- 

 tially a forest bird, frequenting the densely wooded ranges of the Himalayas 

 up to 12,000 feet in summer, and even in winter rarely coming below 7000 feet. 

 Although liking a situation near the snow, it never comes out upon it, but con- 

 fines itself to the dense jungle, which it hardly ever voluntarily quits. "Except 

 by chance," says Hume, "when you may come upon a male sunning himself 

 or preening his feathers on some projecting rock or bare trunk of a fallen tree, 

 these birds are never seen, unless by aid of three or four good dogs, who will 

 speedily rouse them up, or of a trained shikari, who will call them out by closely 

 imitating their loud bleating cry. If you ever catch a passing glimpse of them, 

 it is but for a second, as they drop like stones from their perch and dart away 

 with incredible swiftness, always running, never, so far as I have seen, rising unless 

 you accidentally almost walk on them." They appear to feed upon insects, leaves, 

 shoots of the bamboo, wild fruits, and seeds, and to make their nests in dense 

 patches of hill bamboo; the eggs are as large as large fowls' eggs, white, slightly 

 speckled with dull lilac. These birds are usually taken by snaring, the natives 

 building two long, converging lines of hedge, and in openings near the point 

 nooses are placed, the birds being slowly driven within the lines. 



Moonals. Of about the same size but even more gorgeous in plumage are 

 the splendid Moonals (Lophophorus\ the males of which have much of the upper 

 surface resplendent with glittering metallic green, blue, purple, and orange-crim- 

 son, in addition to which the- head is adorned with a peculiar crest of about a 

 dozen feathers some three inches in length, each with a bare shaft and a spade- 

 shaped enlargement at the tip; the females are much plainer, being blackish 



