REEVES'S PHEASANT 



147 



short distance up the hill, and four more Reeves showed themselves, running with heads 

 low. Their fear was only a passing emotion, however, and within ten minutes they were 

 off guard and feeding busily. Step by step they came on, the whole quintet being now 

 in full view, now half hidden. The long, trailing tails of the males swept along behind, 

 sometimes bent almost into a circle as a bird turned abruptly to seize some insect or 

 berry. The constantly varying elements added to the uncertainty of the birds' 

 movements, and when for several minutes at a time they were completely obscured 

 by mist, I fairly trembled with the excitement of again picking them up through the 

 glasses. 



Again and again they would stand straight up on tip-toe and violently vibrate their 

 wings, following this with a quick shake of the entire plumage, flicking off the gathered 

 moisture in a multitude of drops. Except when actually obscured by the driving fog 

 the birds seemed as bright as if their plumage was dry. There was no protection in 

 their colouring, at least among these surroundings, and I had no difficulty in detecting 

 an exposed wing or part of a tail even when the bird was perfectly quiet. The two hens 

 seemed bolder than their long-tailed mates, and almost always were in the van, leading 

 by a few feet on their upward jaunt. At one place where a series of steep terraces 

 had to be surmounted, the birds went in single file, a hen leading and all the others 

 zigzagging upward exactly in her footsteps. It was remarkable how adept the 

 pheasants were at scaling these miniature cliffs. At times a bird had to crouch with 

 its breast pressed closely against the rocky wall, its tail dangling straight down, while 

 it edged sideways along a narrow ledge to where the slope became less steep. Not 

 once did they fly, although often a few flaps would have saved them many minutes 

 of hard effort. 



Before they reached me, a flock of long-tailed blue magpies flew past, their harsh 

 cries being audible long before they emerged from the mist. When the small flock of 

 Reeves came within forty feet I had flattened down until nothing was visible but the 

 flat, weathered top of my cap and my binoculars. Not a suspicion came to the birds 

 until one of the rascally babblers, which I had entirely forgotten, passed me on one side, 

 and from a neighbouring tree let forth a flood of personal abuse upon me. I was 

 interested to see every Reeves crouch at once, as though they did find some instinctive 

 protection in their parti-coloured plumage. Against the grey rocks and green grass, 

 however, they were markedly conspicuous. 



Knowing that all observation was at an end, I stood up, and five living rockets shot 

 up and outward, tails quivering and undulating, wings a mere blur, bodies sending forth 

 shimmering flashes of gold as the birds settled into their long flight, headed upward 

 toward the still higher opposite ridge. Almost at once they vanished into the mist, and 

 only a trembling pine branch which one of the birds had touched showed that any living 

 pheasant had ever been within sight. At the shock, the flowering conifer shed a shower 

 of pollen dust, which was at once drowned in the drizzling rain. The babblers mewed 

 peevishly in the underbrush, and after wringing as much water as possible out of my 

 clothing, I started on my long, but mostly downhill return to the distant gorge of the 

 Yangtse. My boy greeted me with : '' Have seen, have seen twenty, forty pheasant." 

 But on cross-questioning these became reduced to three of the birds of the flock which 

 had given me such a splendid opportunity. 



