18 ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
ELEPHANT ‘THROUGH NORTH- 
ERN YUNNAN AND BURMA 
BY 
About three o'clock in the 
afternoon of one of my first 
days in this region when the 
sun still held back the sting 
of the coming night air, I left 
camp and turned down one of 
the old, native trails. The 
ground was littered with dried 
leaves and the soughing wind 
through the bamboo leaves 
gave an added hint of autumn 
even thus near the equator. The 
rains were just over and the 
foliage was bright and clean. 
I crept as quietly as possible 
down, down to the very bottom 
of a deep ravine which the 
sun’s rays had already left. 
I knew that the Pheasants 
began to vigil. 
were certain, sooner or later, to come down to 
this level for their evening drink. Near the 
mossy bank of the rivulet I seated myself and 
For an hour I sat quietly, mak- 
ing certain that the birds had not yet come 
Through the curtain of lofty ginger 
stalks overhead I could see Drongas darting 
here and there after insects. Small fly-catchers 
and babblers passed in flocks, drinking and 
flitting upward again. Mos- 
quitos rose in clouds and pes- 
tered me sorely. Once the low 
tree ferns on the opposite bank 
were shaken and through the 
deeper shade of their fronds I 
saw a small tiger cat passing, 
slowly, sinuously. He, too, 
sensed that pheasants come 
here to drink. 
Knowing from the silence 
that they were not yet among 
the bamboos above, I crept on 
up the valley. Tree-vines had 
hung their great masses of 
bloom overhead, and graceful 
wisteria-shaped flowers light- 
SILVER AND KALEEGE PHEASANT COUNTRY, BURMA AND YUNNAN 
