CHEER PHEASANT 59 



turned aside by some barrier, or to escape danger by taking to a tree, I do not suppose 

 the bird would ever willingly fly upward. No matter how far downward the pheasant 

 may go in its single headlong flight, it seems invariably to return on foot, working 

 upward sometimes by an extremely indirect route. More than once I have known one 

 of the pairs of birds which I had under observation to flush and scale far down 

 into the valley, and some two hours later to return along the mountain-side from 

 the north, a route which must have taken them several hundred yards out of the most 

 direct way back. There appears to be no especial significance in the Cheer's 

 perching in trees. They will do this when slightly alarmed by the approach of an 

 animal such as a dog, and the fact of having a nest near by seems also to bring about 

 this habit more frequently, probably owing to a disinclination to leave the vicinity 

 until compelled to do so. 



Many years ago it was stated by some author, and since then has been religiously 

 reiterated in many, many volumes, that the Cheer Pheasant feeds on grubs, insects, 

 seeds and berries, and never touches grass or leaves. I was able to examine only 

 a few crops of freshly killed birds, but in two I found an abundance of small 

 leaves, partly comminuted. On the whole, however, the statement as regards their 

 diet is correct, and I give the exception only to show how futile it is to formulate hard 

 and fast rules when considering the lives of those very adaptive and individual 

 creatures — the birds of our earth. 



Cheer are essentially diggers of the soil, like impeyans, only both sexes are 

 more often found together, and except when the hen is actually incubating, they 

 are seen in pairs labouring close together. Like the impeyans, they have favourite 

 digging places, and where grubs or terrestrial tubers are abundant they will often 

 work down a foot or more below the surface of the ground, their bodies almost wholly 

 concealed, their long tails fraying out behind them against the soil and grass, and every 

 second or two the head and neck shooting up for a glance in all directions. Where 

 the ground is grassy and pliable, one may see where these pheasants have fairly 

 ploughed up the turf for many yards, but this is a rare combination of favourable 

 conditions, and usually one finds isolated diggings here and there among the 

 outjutting boulders and rocky ledges. I once shot a Cheer in the very act of digging, 

 needing it both for the pot and for my investigations, and found eleven wire-worms 

 and a half-dozen fat, white cockchafer grubs which it had but recently unearthed and 

 swallowed. It was not a rare sight, when I was watching a single Cheer cock, to see 

 it pick ants or other small insects from the grass stems and low shrubs, and several 

 times I saw the birds pursue and capture some winged insect, either grasshopper 

 or small moth, which had been disturbed into flight. 



I could not solve the drinking habits of the birds to my complete satisfaction. On 

 many days I am positive the birds did not, as was the habit of the impeyan and 

 koklass in the vicinity, go down the slope to water in the evening. On only two days 

 did I see both birds of a mated pair wander ofl", and then I was not able to follow them. 

 Whether their excessive insect diet supplies them with sufficient moisture, or whatever 

 the reason, Cheer certainly do not show the regular migration to and from water once 

 or twice a day which is so marked a feature in the daily life, for example, of some of the 

 kaleege pheasants. 



