i6 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



America, and of macrolopha only three individuals are recorded as having been kept 

 in the London Zoo, the last over forty years ago, one of which lived three months. 



KOKLASS SHOOTING 



Advice to which I can heartily subscribe is given to sportsmen by Hume when he 

 says, " Unless you are a man of iron, able to walk 40 or 50 miles up and down without 

 fatigue, and able to go uphill just as well as downhill, it is all nonsense going 

 pheasant-shooting in the Himalayas without the necessary aids and in the proper 

 manner. 



" You must have good dogs (small cockers are best), thoroughly under control, who 

 will work exactly to command, and obey the whistle, and you must have a number of 

 intelligent hillmen, something of sportsmen themselves, to search out the shooting- 

 grounds, and when you are shooting, mark the birds that get away from well-chosen 

 posts. I used to have four dogs and over a dozen men. 



" Lastly, you must go in for small game as your object, and not humbug after big 

 game. If a kakur jumps up in the grass before you, roll him over with shot. Have 

 a rifle along with you, and if in beating a gloomy ravine for hill partridges an old 

 sarrow or a precipitous dang or cliff for cheer a gooral or two break, do your best 

 with them, and if when high up after moonal or tragopan or snow cock, a tahr or 

 burrel gives a chance, by all means take it. But if you really want to make bags of 

 pheasants and the like, you must make them your object. Of course, too, you must get 

 right away from hill stations and avoid lines on which other people have been recently 

 shooting ; but the hills are so vast, and so very few men, even to this day, go in earnest 

 for small game, or can get leave in the latter part of October and November, which is 

 the real time for pheasants, that this is easy." 



Owing to the shyness of the Koklass pheasants and their solitary nature, combined 

 with the difficulty of pursuing them in many of their steep haunts, these birds will 

 probably be able to hold their own for many years. Many sportsmen have written 

 of the great difficulty of shooting more than a brace in a day, but occasionally one 

 may have better luck. An anonymous writer has given an excellent account (Jour. 

 Bombay Nat. Hist. Soc. XIX., p. 797) of such an experience which is well worthy 

 of reproduction, as a sidelight upon the Koklass from the English sportsman's point 

 of view. ''There is a tremendous amount of luck in the sort of shooting I am about 

 to describe, and a lot of hard work. About 4.30 a.m. I hear a voice which says : 

 'Save char bajee,' and it seldom has to be repeated for me at this time of the year, 

 which is October, as previous shooting and prospecting seems to have sharpened 

 my senses ; possibly exercise has made my liver a few sizes smaller, hence I am 

 less somnolent. It will not be light until 6 a.m., but I like to have plenty of time 

 over a light breakfast, as I shall not eat again until 12 noon ; also there is a long tramp 

 before the shooting-ground is reached; 5.15, and I am ready for the khud side. My 

 two companions for the day are a sturdy hill native and a little brown-and-white 

 spaniel, the sort so common among the men in the British regiments in the Punjab. 

 She was selected when six weeks old, and commenced her training shortly afterwards, 

 and is now almost perfect as a gun-dog. The brilliant moon which now lights our way 



