GEOFFROY'S BLOOD PARTRIDGE 31 



descending many thousand feet annually, on a more sheltered range they will remain 

 the entire year with much less of seasonal movement. 



The gorgeousness of the cold-temperate and semi-alpine flora of the eastern 

 Himalayas is fully equalled in Szechuan — splendid forests overhead, shrubs giving 

 forth the sweetest of scents, and banks of flowers carpeting the mossy ground. 



The favourite altitude of these partridges, from twelve to fifteen thousand feet, 

 includes, as in the Himalayas, the firs and larches and oaks, these giving place to 

 rhododendrons, trees at first, but higher up dwarfing to shrubs, and passing into 

 the alpine meadows and grasses at a height of about three miles above the sea. 

 At the higher levels of the Blood Partridge's home we find wonderfully brilliant 

 alpine flowers — primroses, both crimson and blue — sometimes so numerous as to form 

 almost a mosaic of solid colour ; yellow saxifrage, white, nodding anemones and 

 gentians as blue as the snow-contrasted sky overhead. 



The brief glimpse I had of these birds — nine altogether — told me nothing of their 

 habits, but from the accounts of David, Davies, and from manuscript notes given me 

 by French missionaries and sportsmen, we may be certain that their habits are identical 

 with those of the Himalayan birds. 



They have the same sociable traits and, at other than the breeding season, unite 

 in coveys or flocks of from ten to thirty individuals, and, indeed, large troops of the 

 birds are occasionally to be seen. Even before the young are full grown these coveys 

 are formed, and I have known of three adult birds and six only half-grown young to 

 be shot from a flock of not less than thirty-five. The birds thus appear to find that 

 there is safety in such association, and the families probably begin to drift together 

 soon after the young are able to fly up to perches. It is certainly true that most of the 

 " hunted " mammals of these high, rugged regions spend much of their lives in flocks 

 or herds, such as the wild sheep, the markhor, tahr, goral, and other goats. The dhole, 

 or wild dog, is the only one of the "hunters" which appears to go in packs. There is 

 a distinct parallel between the pheasants and herbivorous mammals of these high 

 altitudes and those of the tropical jungles, where both deer and pheasants keep to 

 single families and where parents and young soon separate. 



In country where bamboo is abundant the birds seem to show a partiality 

 for its shelter, roosting, however, by preference in trees — firs or rhododendrons. 

 When living and feeding among spruces the birds are said to be almost 

 inedible. 



They have the typically Ithagenine habit of disinclination to flight, combined 

 with considerable running power. It would seem as if they had learned to fear danger 

 in the air far more than pursuit on the ground. It is likely, indeed, that, on the whole, 

 the sudden swoop of an eagle or spring of a leopard or fox is more disastrous than 

 the long-continued pursuit of any four-footed enemies. Hence swift, dodging speed, 

 around boulders and tussocks, would be the safest escape to the shelter of the dense 

 rhododendrons or bamboos. When alarmed into flight the covey fans out at once, 

 the birds scaling for some distance and alighting in various directions, then later 

 reassembling by call. A dog will always send the birds into trees, from which they 

 pay little attention to an approaching human being. 



The call of this bird, which I did not myself hear, is described as a single long- 



