12 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



As regards the roosting places, Blood Partridges, in their winter haunts, appear 

 to fly up into^ the branches of firs, sometimes the entire covey roosting close 

 together. At least, that is the consensus of opinion of sportsmen who have had the 

 opportunity of observing them at this season. In the early spring they are satisfied 

 with low rhododendron trees or even scrub. When the birds settle for the night in a 

 dense thicket of this character they are, indeed, safe, for few creatures could penetrate 

 it, and certainly not without a loud crackling of twigs and leaves. 



I have found evidences, in sign and in a stray feather or two, of such a roosting 

 place Being occupied for at least several consecutive nights. Tracks of dholes or 

 wild dogs were outside the thicket, but none on the scanty snow beneath the 

 evergreen rhododendron leaves. 



In regard to the tunnelling of Blood Partridges into snow for nocturnal shelter, we 

 have only Hooker's authority, his exact words being as follows : " During winter it 

 appears to burrow under or in holes amongst the snow ; for I have snared it in January 

 in regions thickly covered with snow, at an altitude of twelve thousand feet." On this 

 vaguely circumstantial evidence scores of writers of natural history volumes have 

 incorporated the burrowing habit, often as one of the principal habits of this species. 

 While snow burrowing is known among grouse, yet the ice, with which the cold night 

 fogs often seal the surface of the snow in the haunts of the Blood Partridge, would 

 make such a custom one of extreme risk. Instead of a regular habit, such a voluntary 

 imbedding in snow is probably of the rarest occurrence, if, indeed, it is not always 

 brought about by the subsequent snowing-in of a covey roosting on the ground, as we 

 have occasionally observed in the case of the bobwhite. 



Mr. Luday, an English sportsman, tells me that more than once he has found 

 indubitable proof that these birds occasionally roost on the ground in the shelter of 

 a bit of crag or boulder, and, in this instance, they face outward from the centre, in the 

 regulation quail-like covey formation. 



We have little first-hand information in regard to the competitors and enemies of 

 Blood Partridges. There are few consanguineous intruders in their domains, although 

 the monal is sometimes to be found in the same vicinity, but with very different 

 feeding habits. The snowcocks excel even the Blood Partridges in their altitudinal 

 distribution, and seldom approach the scrub and forests. 



I have shot a large beech marten and known another to be seen in close vicinity 

 to Blood Partridges, and grey foxes are one of the commonest of carnivores in the 

 upper rhododendron zone. Dholes or wild dogs doubtless take toll when larger 

 game is not to be found, and the Himalayan leopards must look with favour upon these 

 green-feathered morsels. Among birds, the golden and Bonelli's eagles are probably 

 most to be dreaded, although the former is the only one I have actually seen hunting 

 in Blood Partridge country. Of all the four-footed hunters, the slinking, lichen-hued 

 reynard of the rocky alpine meadows must be the worst enemy to such birds as these, 

 whose senses and activity are far from being equal to those of the true pheasants. 

 The rough, rolling, boulder-strewn character of their haunts, and the deadening 

 character of the thick, matted turf all favour the approach of such an animal as a fox, 

 who with a sudden leap must seldom fail in his attack. 



In regard to the significance of the colours of the cock Blood Partridge, Waddell 



