COMMON KOKLASS PHEASANT 



Pucrasia macrolopha macrolopha (Lesson) 



Names. — Generic : Pucrasia, the Latinized vernacular onomatopoetic name. Specific : macrolopha, Gk. 

 jxaicpo^, long, \6^o<i, crest, long-crested. English : Common Koklass or Pucras Pheasant ; Garhwal Koklass ; 

 both names are onomatopoetic from the cry of the bird. French : Pucrasia macrolophe. German : Schopfifasan. 

 Native : Phocrass (Bhote Parganas of Kumaon and Garhwal) ; Koklass, Kokla (Almorato Simla) ; Koak (Pahari, 

 Hindi, Kullu, Mandi) ; Plas, Kukrola (Garhwal). 



Brief Description.— Male : Long crest buff and dark green ; head and neck glossy dark green except for 

 a large patch of white on the side neck ; upper plumage and sides grey, the wings brownish, most of the feathers, 

 with a single black shaft-stripe ; centre of the breast and of the under plumage dark chestnut ; outer tail-feathers 

 black shading into rufous on the outer web, and tipped with white. Female : Short crest and upper parts dark, 

 mottled with sandy buff, with a pale, reddish-buff shaft-stripe on most of the feathers ; chin, throat and side neck 

 whitish ; below pale rufous, edged and mottled with black ; outer tail-feathers mostly black, chestnut toward the 

 base, and tipped with white. 



Range. — Western Himalayas, from Chamba to Kumaon. 



THE BIRD IN ITS HAUNTS 



I REACHED out from my sleeping-bag and flashed the electric light at my watch. 

 The hands marked three o'clock. It was early morning of the middle day of May. 

 Then I shouted to my native boy, getting in reply a sleepy, "Yes, Sahib," and a deep- 

 drawn sigh of despair expressing his soul's sorrow that such long hours of comfortable 

 sleep should be sacrificed to merely watching — not even shooting — the pheasants of 

 these Garhwalese highlands. After I opened the flaps of the tent and had a look at the 

 splendour of the sky, I decided to go alone on this night's ramble, and accordingly 

 brought joy to my servant's heart by sending him back to his blanket after he had 

 brought me water and cocoa. But Hadzia the hillman loomed up in the darkness and 

 without comment followed quietly after me. In my sweater and khaki I seemed to be a 

 part of the cool darkness about me, and my leather moccasins made not a sound on the 

 turf of the valley. Steadily I climbed up, up, to the saddle of the ridge and there 

 squatted, Indian fashion, to get my bearings and decide upon my route. Day after 

 day I had penetrated farther and farther into this Himalayan wilderness, with no halts 

 for observation, and now that I had reached the haunts of not one, but three or four 

 pheasants — the Koklass, the kaleege, the impeyan, the cheer — I gave up every particle 

 of my being to absorbing the very atmosphere — their haunts, habits, life, that was what 

 I wished to sense. To all intents and purposes I became a pheasant myself. 



I seemed to rest upon the very summit of the world, a shrubby slope dropping 

 away behind, and the deodar forest in front sloping downward, its file upon file of tall 

 ghostly forms showing dimly through the translucent darkness. The stars were brilliant 

 and the Milky Way showed like a luminous cloud. In the East the great train of 



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