CHEER PHEASANT S5 



flushed above, it was coming right for me. I let off the gun somehow, and almost before 

 it seemed well off, my gun was dashed aside and I got a blow in the face that made my 

 nose bleed, and knocked me over the precipice, to the bottom of which my gun fell, as 

 should I also, had not the two men squatting at my feet seized my legs. Yet this bird, 

 as the state of the body proved, must have been at least thirty yards from me when the 

 shot struck it, and it was stone dead when I had sufficiently recovered myself to think 

 of it" 



''This species," says Wilson, ''is an inhabitant of the lower and intermediate 

 ranges, seldom found at very high elevations, and never approaching the limits of forest. 



"Though far from being rare, fewer perhaps are met with than of any other kind 

 unless it is particularly sought for, always excepting the Jewar, Tragopan mela7io- 

 cephalus (Gray). The reason for this may be that the general character of the ground 

 where they resort is not so inviting in appearance to the sportsman as other places ; 

 besides, they are everywhere confined to particular localities, and are not, like the rest, 

 scattered indiscriminately over almost every part of the regions they inhabit. Their 

 haunts are on grassy hills with a scattered forest of oak and small patches of under- 

 wood, hills covered with the common pine, near the sites of deserted villages, old 

 cow-sheds, and the long grass amongst precipices and broken ground. 



"They are seldom found on hills entirely destitute of trees or jungles, or in the 

 opposite extreme of deep shady forest ; in the lower ranges they keep near the top of the 

 hill or about the middle, and are seldom found in the valleys or deep ravines. Further 

 in the interior they are generally low down, often in the immediate vicinity of the 

 villages, except in the breeding season, when each pair seeks a spot to perform the 

 business of incubation ; they congregate in flocks of from five or six to ten or fifteen, 

 and seldom more than two or three lots inhabit the same hill. 



" They wander a good deal about the particular hill they are located on, but not 

 beyond certain boundaries, remaining about one spot for several days or weeks, and then 

 shifting to another, but never entirely abandoning the place, and year after year they 

 may, to a certainty, be found in some quarter of it. 



"During the day, unless dark and cloudy, they keep concealed in the grass and 

 bushes, coming out morning and evening to feed. When come upon suddenly while 

 out, they run off quickly in different directions, and conceal themselves in the nearest 

 cover, and seldom more than one or two get on the wing. They run very fast, and if 

 the ground is open and no cover near, many will run two or three hundred yards in 

 preference to getting up. 



"After concealing themselves they lie very close, and are flushed within a few yards. 

 There is, perhaps, no bird of its size which is so difficult to find after the flock has been 

 disturbed and they have concealed themselves ; where the grass is very long, even if 

 marked down, without a good dog it is often impossible to flush them, and even with 

 the assistance of the best dogs not one-half will be found a second time. A person may 

 walk within a yard of one, and it will not move. I have knocked them over with a 

 stick, and even taken them with the hand. In autumn the long grass, so prevalent 

 about many of the places they resort to, enables them to hide almost anywhere ; but 

 this is burnt by the villagers at the end of winter, and they then seek refuge in low 

 jungle and brushwood, and with a dog are not so difficult to find. 



