KIRGHIZ PHEASANT 99 



if a dozen of these wild birds could be mixed with their English cousins, and put over 

 the guns, a very large proportion would escape untouched. I have seen, too, cock 

 birds put up one side of a river cross to the other side, a distance of perhaps 150 or 

 200 yards, at a height which would do credit to the most skilfully organised drive at 

 home, and yet there was nothing to make these birds fly high. As far as my experience 

 goes, this is not the case with the birds that have their abode in the reed beds or the 

 plain lands of Turkestan, such as Aral, Balkash, with the rivers flowing into them, and 

 the Zarafshan regions. There the birds fly low at all times, and do not trouble to go 

 very far either, for their safety lies in the reedy swamps, where man cannot go. It 

 must be remembered that a very large percentage of the pheasants of Central Asia 

 in their natural haunts have never so much as seen a tree, much less a wooded 

 country of considerable area containing high trees. 



" Here, for instance, it was the first time that I had seen the wild pheasants go to 

 roost in the trees. At a quarter to five every evening the jungle resounded with the 

 ' cock-cock ' of the birds as they took up their quarters for the night. This is the 

 moment, par excellence, for the native hunter as he creeps through the undergrowth, 

 and he never fails to bag a bird at each shot from his old muzzle-loader. The birds 

 are very loath to fly when once off the ground, and country, which before seemed bird- 

 less owing to their running powers and close sitting, now showed the true number of 

 pheasants inhabiting it. 



*' Besides the native gunner, the pheasants have a great enemy in the falconer. 

 The Kirghiz, always fond of sport, spend a good deal of their time during the winter 

 in flying their hawks at pheasants. Their favourite hawk for this purpose is the 

 goshawk or karchigai, a bold, fearless bird, easily able to take such game. It was with 

 much interest that I watched a native hawk-catcher at work ; his methods were so 

 much like those of the fowlers of other far-distant countries. A circle of very light but 

 large-meshed netting, supported on light wands, surrounded a bare space, in the middle 

 of which was placed a captive pigeon on a block. A string attached to the pigeon's 

 wings made the bird flutter at the will of the fowler, who lay concealed under a heap 

 of brushwood at a short distance. A wild hawk, attracted by the fluttering pigeon, 

 ' stoops ' at it, is entangled in the netting, and at the mercy of the falconer. 



" In the daytime, too, during the winter months one may find the pheasants off the 

 ground, high in the thorn scrub, feeding on the yellow berries, which form their chief 

 article of diet. If it were not for the great winter supply of frozen berries, which, by 

 the way, the Chinese call 'pheasant food,' the birds would indeed be in a bad way. 

 As it was, all the birds that I killed in the middle of December, in spite of a month of 

 snow-covered ground and bitter cold, were very fat and in the best condition. I opened 

 as many as thirty crops, and found all full of this berry, and little else besides. But 

 they have to make use of the whole day in order to get their fill, and were busy feeding 

 during the nine hours of daylight. 



'' During the first day I shot twenty-six birds, and at dusk retired to the native 

 house, where I spent most of my time in devising a method for keeping my specimens 

 out of harm's way. What with cats and the native child, who would pull out all the 

 long tail-feathers, I had my work cut out. The next day I shot through the more 

 densely timbered country, and found birds fairly numerous in certain localities — 



