lo A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



enacted in the gloom of the forest ; the murderous pursuit of the marten ; the awkward 

 attempt of the young flying squirrel to sail to another tree ; the daring but unsuccessful 

 leap of the marten. Then the mother coming, not to the rescue, for these gentle 

 creatures have no weapons of offence, but at least, relying on her activity, to scream her 

 fury at the terrible pursuer. Her flight had been made between two trees at least a 

 hundred feet apart. Passing against the stars I had seen her skilful twist and break as 

 she steered unerringly for the trunk ahead. 



Such was my first meeting with the Koklass Pheasant, although at the time, in the 

 exciting onrush of the other creatures, the flight of the birds was momentarily forgotten. 



On succeeding days I had many more chances of studying these pheasants, at times 

 keeping them under observation for an hour, but though such opportunities yielded 

 manyfold more actual facts of their life history, yet never did I feel a more intimate 

 appreciation of the terrible dangers with which these and all the game-birds have to 

 contend. Fast asleep on a high fir branch, amid the quiet in the dead of night, think of 

 being stealthily approached by such a terrible enemy as a pine marten — a weasel many 

 times exaggerated in strength if not in cruelty and cunning. Well is it for birds that 

 nature has denied them the scent glands which makes it possible for beasts of prey to 

 stalk their furry victims. How much more hopeless had the marten come upon the 

 roosting pheasants in its wanderings than the more or less uncertain pursuit of the 

 nocturnal, volant squirrels. 



When all had become quiet again in the deodar forest, the dawn for a long time 

 seemed stationary — only the ghostly, eerie comet-light sifting in and around the trees. 

 I crouched down, with my back to the base of a giant spruce, and watched and listened. 

 Unless, from such a position, one has observed the tiny moth millers in their nocturnal 

 life, it is impossible to realize how different it is from their diurnal life during the 

 hours of sunlight. In the day, if we see them at all, it is only a glimpse as they scuttle 

 beneath a leaf or into a crevice. Now a score or more flew about me, their wings 

 humming loudly as they passed my ear. I thought at first large beetles were flying 

 about, but when a beetle really appeared the metallic twang of his bass-viol flight 

 revealed the difference at once. The millers pursued each other, and flitted in and out 

 among the twigs like the ghosts of butterflies. Now and then they alighted on the dead 

 leaves and made remarkably loud rustlings as they walked about. At five o'clock the 

 first buzz of a fly was heard ; utterly unlike the subdued hummings of the nocturnal 

 creatures ; and at this tiny trumpet of daybreak, three or four species of birds broke into 

 song, led by the double-phrase ballad of a tiny green warbler. 



A Koklass Pheasant crowed from far up the mountainside, and two white-crested 

 kaleege began to challenge one another below me. Then a chukor joined in, calling 

 twice. The comet vanished ; the East became a blaze of glory, blue and gold streaming 

 over the mountains of Kashmir— and my first night with the Koklass was at an end. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



The centre of distribution of the Common Koklass Pheasant is Garhwal. Here the 

 palest specimens seem to be found in greater abundance. Eastward it keeps more or 

 less within subspecific descriptive bounds, until, about the Kumaon-Nepal frontier, it 



