SATYR TRAGOPAN 5^ 



range. In the spring one may flush a Tragopan cock and see it scale across a deep, 

 wide valley to the opposite forest slope, but if undisturbed for a few days, a bird — and 

 very probably the same one — may be found in the same patch of forest. Once only was 

 I able to verify this, when on two occasions, some three days apart, a bird, marked by a 

 gap in the tail feathers where one or two had been lost, was flushed by a native's dog 

 and flew a long way, from one ridge to the next. The birds found on any one range 

 undoubtedly spend their life there, unless driven away by persecution. 



I have never observed the Tragopans on any ridge or slope where the adjacent 

 valleys were dry, and when one hears or sees them far up the mountain side, a tumbling 

 little rivulet is almost certain to be found in the nearest gully. 



The only way to study these birds, or to catch more than a glimpse of them, is by 

 hours of patient watching in their haunts. One may stalk blood partridges or kaleege 

 pheasants with some hope of success, but Tragopans, owing to their wariness and the 

 nature of their favourite slopes, can only be waylaid in ambush : unless, of course, one is 

 shooting, when with dogs one can beat them out of the thick cover. But a Tragopan 

 fluttering upward through columns of bamboos, or fleeing for safety to a branch ahead of 

 a hunting dog, presents little of interest except to the eye along the gun barrel. 



In Sikhim and eastern Nepal, where in spring I have studied Satyr Tragopans, 

 I found that narrow side gorges, etched out of the slopes by tiny uncharted stream- 

 lets, were the best places for finding the birds. Here, in the early spring, when the 

 melted snows swelled the rivulet to a rushing torrent, the carpet of crackling bamboo 

 and rhododendron leaves was swept away, leaving the clean, outjutting rocks and an 

 overarched tangle of broken bamboo stems. In early May, when the torrent again sub- 

 sided, one could make one's way silently down the dripping mossy boulders, from far 

 up the mountain slope to the very bottom of the valley. A single step into the jungle 

 on either hand would have sent forth a crackle of leaves, arousing and alarming 

 every living creature in the gorge. 



The Tragopans of this region — of at least six widely separated ravines south of 

 the Kong La Pass — roosted low down in the valleys. I could never discover the 

 birds when they went to roost or left their perches. Once, however, in early morning, 

 I heard a cock utter his mating call from his roost. I flushed him at once after he 

 called, and from sign knew he had spent the night there. The tree was a magnolia 

 of moderate size, and, climbing to a branch directly overhead, I found the moss 

 pressed tight where his toes and breast had been. This was twelve feet from the 

 ground and only a few yards from a spring which gushed up from the heart of a 

 ledge of mossy rocks. 



Although the birds invariably roosted far down the valley, they fed both morning 

 and evening well up the slopes. These slopes which the Tragopans love to frequent 

 at this time of year are altogether delightful to the lover of the wild beauties of this 

 Himalayan wilderness. All one's senses are charmed — sight, scent and hearing. We 

 leave our camp under the lee of the mountain ridge and make our way to the nearest 

 ravine. The sun gives a welcome warmth and the last of the night's cloud mantle 

 drifts past in torn shreds and whiffs of vapour. Before we turn down into the 

 ravine, a last look around shows range after range of splendid mountains, the nearest 

 green and sombre, the others becoming more vague and purple as they pass into 



