BROWN EARED-PHEASANT 167 



steps and watched more carefully, the leaders taking hardly a mouthful of food, but 

 concentrating their attention on the surrounding cover, very evidently on the lookout 

 for some possible enemy hidden there. In the more open places this watchfulness was 

 somewhat relaxed, although there was never a moment when several of the heads were 

 not raised high, looking keenly for danger. In this particular I noticed that some were 

 much more cautious than others. I at once leaped to the conclusion that these were the 

 males, but a careful search with the glasses showed that this was not the case — there 

 were as many watchful, nervous hens as cocks ; so, unless the more hungry, less alert 

 birds were the young of the year, not yet keyed up to adult discretion by total indepen- 

 dence, I do not know, but from my observation on other pheasants I should say such 

 was the case. 



The mode of feeding was interesting. Several birds would gather about a tuft of 

 grass and, with heads held on one side, would begin to work with strong, quick picks 

 of the beak. The soil would fly, and now and then a bird would reach forward and 

 seize something edible. Two or three times the efforts of the pheasants brought the 

 grass tumbling down upon them, and then there was always a rush to get at the 

 exposed roots, where an abundance of titbits seemed always to be present. Once a 

 group of four birds was left far behind in their eagerness to deplete a particularly rich 

 larder, and when they had finished they set out full speed and ran with great rapidity 

 after their fellows. The single musk deer had meanwhile left his feathered companions 

 and taken a more direct downward route, following closely in the trail of his four 

 companions who had preceded him. 



The birds were silent on this occasion, and uttered not a note while within sight. 

 They were working obliquely downward, probably aiming eventually at the trickle of 

 snow water at the bottom of the valley. I made no effort to go after them when they 

 disappeared beyond a rise of ground, as I know that the first of the nineteen pairs of 

 eyes to sight me would be the signal for the vanishing of the entire flock. 



I waited an hour or two longer, but only one other episode of interest occurred, and 

 that after I had crawled out of the tent and was stretching my cruelly cramped limbs. 

 Swiftly and low over the maze of bare birch twigs came a tumultuous flock of slender- 

 billed choughs, pursued by a white falcon of medium size. The bird of prey was in 

 deadly earnest and made dash after dash at the frightened black birds, but for at least 

 half a dozen swoops the choughs were too quick for him, eluding the sudden onrush 

 by a single spasmodic swerve sideways, and then avoiding a second attack by rising 

 above the falcon, forcing it to circle several times in order to gain altitude sufficient for 

 another onslaught. 



I retraced my way towards camp and found the southern slopes smoking in the last 

 rays of the sun's warmth. When the sun sank and the chill shadow of night fell, this 

 stopped at once, but, while it lasted, the mist was so dense that it seemed as if there 

 was actually some subterranean combustion. I watched a rook grubbing in the centre 

 of a yard or two of smoking soil, and this small area gave forth so dense a mist that the 

 bird appeared dimly, like a mere faint shadow of itself. 



