THE GAME BIRDS OF INDIA. 213 



to necessitate their division into subspecies, in which ease the 

 Burmese bird wotild bear the name P. hicalcaratum chinguis. 



Nidification. — There is very little on record about the nidifi- 

 cation of this pheasant in a state of nature, though it has often 

 been successfully bred in captivity. In Cachar, Sylhet, Dibrugarh 

 and other districts of Assam, in which province I was stationed for 

 many years, the bird was common, in many places extremely so, 

 and consequently I have seen numerous nests. 



The breeding season commences in the last few days of March, 

 in Burmah a little earlier, and continues through April and May into 

 June, but the great majority of eggs are laid in April in the lower 

 portion of the range and in May on the higher hills. 



The nests themselves are, as far as I have seen, nothing more 

 than a rough and often scanty mass of grasses, dead leaves and 

 other fallen rubbish collected together in some hollow, generally a 

 natural one in the foot of a clump of bamboos, or in scrub jungle 

 amongst thick bushes. Sometimes even I have seen the eggs 

 merely deposited on the ground upon the dead vegetation which lay 

 as it had dropped, no attempt having been made by the birds to 

 scrape the leaves, etc., together as a bed for them to lie on. 



At the same time Clarke describes a nest of this pheasant as 

 being " made of twigs and leaves roughly put together, with an 

 apology of a lining of this bird's own feathers, and possessed 

 sufficient cohesion to permit of its removal, eggs and all, to my 

 bungalow." 



The site selected is always one in very dense jungle, and even 

 when it is placed at the foot of a bamboo clump, this is always 

 growing in mixed scrub and bamboo, never in the open bamboo 

 forest which covers so much of the country this pheasant haunts. 

 A very favourite breeding place is in the tangled secondary growth 

 which grows up in cultivation clearings after they have been desert- 

 ed for a year or two. This growth is always very matted and 

 impenetrable close to the ground, and it is therefore almost impos- 

 sible for any enemy, human or beast, to approach near enough to 

 catch the bird whilst actually on its nest. 



They breed well into the Plains at the foot of the hills, but 

 undoubtedly the great majority nest in the low foot hills, between 

 the level of the Plains and about one thousand feet, which are 

 found all along their range of habitat. There is, however, one 

 thing necessary in addition to dense cover and that is the proximity 

 of water. Even when, as is sometimes the case, they are found 

 breeding at far greater altitu.des, 6,000 feet occasionally, I believe 

 their nests will never be found more than two or three hundred 

 yards from the nearest stream or pool. 



Normally two eggs only form a full clutch, but I have several 

 times taken three or four in a nest, once or twice, five, and also 



