320



Practical Bird-Keeping.



in summer in thick Yew bushes, or Spruce trees headed back.

But in the North of England at any rate, I find they are better

shut into dry sheds in winter, with a peat moss floor and plenty

of rough perches to climb about on. Like so many mountain

species, whether mammals, birds or plants, Tragopans when

brought down to low altitudes, seem very sensitive to damp cold,

though they look happy enough on a dry frosty day. Mine get,

and I think require, a variety of food—wheat, barley, hemp and

Canary seed, green stuff and any common fruit that is available.

Of monkey and tiger nuts, Tragopans and Monals are very fond,

and also mine get like most of my birds Barley meal scalded

with Poultry meal into a “crumbly” mass. I do not think

Tragopans will live long upon hard grain alone. When first

imported, Tragopans are sometimes difficult subjects, and must

be tempted by raisins, earth worms, soaked maize, or in fact

anything that they will eat. The young cocks do not come into

colour till the second autumn, but before the first winter there

will generally be a few feathers of the second plumage about

the head and neck, enough to indicate their sex. The hens will

sometimes lay in their second summer, but more often not.


The full display of the male Tragopan has often been

described ; it is a wonderful sight, though not often visible even

to its owner. The letting down of the gular flap is momentary,

and the bird seems shy ot exhibiting this when conscious of

being watched. The more common partial “show,” when the

throat wattle swells and the wing is dropped to show the beau¬

tiful spotted feathering to the female bird, can be seen at almost

any feeding time till the female begins to sit.


One of the peculiarities of the Tragopans, or at least the

three species above named, which alone I have kept, is that they,

invariably in my experience, lay their eggs, not on the ground

like other Game-birds, but in trees and bushes, or disused nests

of other birds such as pigeons, or even in structures of their

own making. A Cabot’s Tragopan once somehow discovered an

old Stockdove’s nest, 17ft. from the ground, in some ivy on the

stem of a spruce fir. The latter was bare of branches, so that

the bird had to clamber along the spreading bough of a neigh¬

bouring yew tree, till she could spring to the ivy.



