1 14 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



these and all birds, and served as a foil to enhance my later more cheerful studies 

 of this pheasant. 



On a windy, bleak morning in April, I toiled slowly up the steep slope of a rugged 

 mountain in eastern Nepal. Scattered around me were splendid black silver firs, 

 gnarled and twisted into the most fantastic shapes, and as I looked back, their knotty 

 elbows ever arranged themselves in picturesque frames about the wonderful snows of 

 Everest and Kinchinjunga. Earlier in the morning every needle had been frosted with 

 the frozen mists of the night clouds, but these soon evaporated under the fitful glimpses 

 of the sun, which now and then shone out. All day the great bunches of moss on 

 trunks and branches oozed drops of icy water, which fell softly to the ground. 



Now and then a dark cloud would surge up and over me and send down a shower 

 of hail and sleet or a flurry of snow, the flakes finding me crouched and shivering, 

 clinging close to the shelter of some century-beaten trunk. It was a day of extremes, 

 measured both by space and time ; from the shelter of a huge, outjutting mass of mossy 

 cliff I could see summer far below me, and upon the lofty snow slopes, eternal winter ; 

 within a few minutes the icy blasts would give place to the full warm glow of spring. 



The dark cloud passed, and the sunshine flooded me with its full strength. I saw 

 the mosses under my hand full fruited, at my feet blue patches of forget-me-nots, while 

 the buds of the nearest fir branch were bursting their winter scales. A flock of small 

 birds worked down the mountain slope, one after another, searching rhododendron and 

 conifer for food ; a half-dozen Sikhim cole and brown tits, the latter ever harping on 

 their simple see-e-e-e. With them were two rufous pied woodpeckers, hammering, 

 and calling loud attention to themselves. 



An alpine meadow-glade sloped steeply before me among the hills, carpeted with 

 coarse grass and stunted bamboo, the latter forming curious masses of balled foliage 

 strung on low stems. From this harsh, arctic turf came sundry low squeaks and 

 rustlings ; the life sounds of little furry voles. At the lower end of this uptilted 

 meadow, two compact flocks of black-throated thrushes vibrated between their feeding 

 ground among the grass and watch stations on the tall firs. From a dead tree farther 

 down the slope a white-collared thrush called loudly. 



I started again on my laborious upward climb, but scarcely had I ascended a hundred 

 feet when the cold, clammy hand of the blue mist was laid again upon me, the birds 

 swirled away, the sun blotted from view, and I shivered in the bitter dampness. 

 I rested, panting from my exertions in the rarefied air. A black, shapeless shadow lay 

 among the stunted bamboo above me, and when I reached it I found a cock Impeyan 

 Pheasant, lying breast upward, dead, among the firs and rhododendron slopes which 

 had been his home. The dreariness of the surroundings seemed enhanced ; the great 

 mountains seemed cruel ; the cold winds more biting than before. 



I examined the bird and found several great talon marks where some great bird of 

 prey had struck and then, for unknown reasons, relinquished its victim. I slung the 

 bird over my shoulder — a cuirass of burnished metallic hues. The next surprise waited 

 for the scene to be shifted over a ridge, five minutes later, when the sun had broken 

 through again, and far below me a spotted dove was cooing out its soul for very joy of 

 life. Between two titanic halves of a split rock came a sudden rustle of great wings, and 

 swiftly there flapped away on labouring pinions a golden eagle, and vanished beyond 



