REEVES'S PHEASANT 149 



moment the setter, who had passed the wall, was at a 'dead set.' I knew there were 

 several birds, or some larger game, by the general activity and caution shown by the 

 dog. I was soon over the wall, ready for anything. 



" I surveyed my position in a moment. Below me was long grass, on the ledge I 

 had left some thick and high trees, on my right a hill, also with long, rank grass, but no 

 wood. I moved forwards a few paces, but the dog was there like a marble statue. I was 

 very badly placed, for I could not see where the game could be. Up got six Reeves's 

 Pheasants, splendid birds. I felt certain of two. I am sorry to say, however, I only 

 succeeded in bagging one, which went rolling down the hill in his last struggles. I 

 bounded after him, afraid the dog would mouth the beautiful plumage. The bird I had 

 bagged was a cock, measuring 5 ft. 4 ins. from the bill to end of tail-feathers. From 

 the time I first came on their scent the distance over which I worked must have been 

 a mile ; I was, therefore, glad of a rest. The birds had flown in all directions, so 

 there was no use marking them. My left barrel had been ineffectually discharged 

 at a fine cock, which flew straight across the valley. 



" In several widely distant localities these birds have been observed and shot through- 

 out the year on the very same slopes, and along the streams of certain small valleys, so 

 there seems no doubt that the Reeves's Pheasant is very decidedly a resident, and in the 

 southern portions of its range, at least, exhibiting no tendency even to a seasonal 

 altitudinal migration. In the north, its movements are more irregular, and, like those of 

 the ring-necked and eared pheasants of that region, governed by snow-fall. The ability 

 of this bird to cover very considerable distances in flight enable it to seek a distant 

 feeding-ground with great facility, and to return as speedily. 



" I know of no record of its occurring at less than a thousand feet above sea-level, 

 and usually the valleys or mountain slopes where it is found are over two thousand feet 

 high. From this altitude it ranges upward to six thousand feet. 



'' The Reeves's Pheasant keeps together in families or small flocks during the winter, 

 the attraction being a true social instinct, and not accidental association due to local 

 abundance of food. In the spring the birds separate, and from all the facts I can gather 

 I should be inclined to think that the birds are monogamous usually, but that occasionally 

 two hens are mated to a cock. Trios of adult birds accompanied by half-grown young 

 have been seen by travellers in China several times, and yet my experience with birds in 

 captivity is that the monogamous state is more normal. This latter is a very important 

 bit of evidence, as captivity always tends to break down any natural monogamy in birds." 



W. R. Zappey writes me that in the stomachs of these pheasants he has found 

 cultivated beans, acorns, wild persimmons, turnips, bits of cabbage and lily bulbs, these 

 birds having been trapped near outlying villages. 



The alarm cry of the Reeves is a penetrating, high cry, uttered as loudly by the 

 female as the male. 



The call-note of the bird as heard in captivity is very unlike the voice of a game- 

 bird, and until one actually sees the bird in the act of utterance, it is difficult to believe 

 that such a sound proceeds from so large a bird. It is exactly like the simple song of 

 some small passerine bird, given in a very high piping key, and occasionally with a 

 trilling quality which enhances the resemblance. This high note is repeated rapidly 

 from six to twenty times, musically and sweetly, so that one instinctively looks among 



