86



Hubert D. Astley—Avicultural Notes



lien). Russet in colour, especially about the head, born with fully

developed wing feathers, and if the weather be fairly good, not at all

difficult to rear. I give them custard to commence with, mixed with

dried ants’ cocoons and insectile food, but they soon take to pheasant

meal, and love lettuce chopped fine, dandelion leaves, etc., and clean

gentles. At a month old they have the colouring of the adult female — -

a rich spotted russet-brown. At times one of them flies on to one’s

shoulder as unconcerned as a starling on a sheep's back. Tragopans

are far tamer at this age, or any age, than Monauls. By the by, my old

hen Monaul (Impeyan Pheasant) has her brood of five, hatched by

herself in a small aviary, and two males reared by me in 1918 are still

at large. One in the woods, always wild ; the other amongst the poultry,

to whom he displays ridiculously, looking like some Eastern potentate

garbed in gorgeous violets and blues, and bedecked in sapphires and

emeralds with a neckpiece of burnished copper. His full display is

amusing. I have watched him in an orchard. He stoops to the ground,

works his opened wings up and down like a toy wound up, then rushes

forward for a few yards in this position, suddenly stopping, raising

himself up, turning and walking away with head in the air, chestnut

tail widely spread, and white rump gleaming. An extraordinary

spectacle, but not so fascinating, nor really so beautiful, as the display

of the Tragopans.


My male Satyr Tragopan was very pugnacious this last April

(I do not know why, but so many birds seemed to be full of a war-like

spirit this year ; it is catching, I suppose), and attacked me in

the aviary, spurring my hands and drawing blood. Then he would

walk round me, swelling out all his splendid Venetian-red body, starred

with white spots, compressing his head feathers, and letting clown

his horns, brilliant turquoise blue-green, a marvellous contrast of

colour against the black of the crest and the glowing red of the body,

never quite showing all his wattle, which is turquoise blue with rose

spots, as vivid as the finest Limoges eicamel, and more so. One so

seldom is there at the right moment to see the full display, which only

lasts three weeks at the most. My aviary-keeper told me that the male

Tragopan jumped on to his back very often when he was stooping down

to clean up, where the bird would peck angrily at his cap, and how one



