WHITE-CRESTED KALEEGE 13 



with bluish on the under side of their petals. Elsewhere, and thriving as well in the 

 shade of the spruces as in the glades, were mysterious, fairy star blossoms, flowering 

 apparently on the dead stem of last year — a strange resurrection — while the new, downy 

 leaves sprouted independently on a new stem from the ground. These too all had their 

 individual odour. 



Most fragrant and evident to this dulled sense of ours were the spicy perfumes of 

 the trees themselves. Who can describe these, or who, in the case of the spruce, needs to ? 

 It was the same bracing, keen-cut scent that greets one in the Canadian wilderness ; 

 that crosses the bow of one's sampan in the rivers of eastern China ; that soothes one to 

 sleep in the Rockies, or that is borne on the velvet breeze from a Florida '' hummock." 

 The silver fir sent down this Himalayan valley a strong, resinous odour, as penetrating 

 as the points of its blue-green needles, while the fragrance of the spruce was fully as 

 aromatic, but less pungent. One could call it almost sweet, were it not for the perfume 

 of the real flowers. The deodar— tree of God—had a fainter fragrance, but none the less 

 spicy and resinous. 



And so, as the dusk of twilight approached, I made my way past the scratched-up 

 turf of the glades, where, during the day, the pheasants had sought and found their food, 

 who now, their thirst quenched, were seeking their safe roosting-places high up among 

 the branches of the spruce or fir. A few would succumb before the dawn to the sudden 

 attack of marten or weasel, others would awaken in early morning, send forth their 

 challenge and begin anew their daily life. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



This kaleege is confined to the Western Himalayas, inhabiting the lower and 

 middle ranges from Hazara on the west, through Kashmir, Garhwal and western 

 Kumaon, but probably not actually found in Nepal itself. On the south it is found in 

 the outer range of the Siwaliks at a thousand feet elevation, up to a height of ten 

 thousand feet near the snows of the mid-Himalayas. 



General Account. — The preference which the White-crested Kaleege shows for 

 the vicinity of native villages, together with its comparatively unsuspicious nature, 

 has tended to make this quite the best known of Western Himalayan pheasants. 

 Several accounts have been written of it, those of Wilson and Baldwin being perhaps 

 the best. I have added to the observations which I was able to make those which 

 could be obtained only by some one resident throughout the year in the haunts 

 of this bird. 



There are few types of localities within its range which are not at one time or 

 another frequented by the White-crest. On the other hand, after finding the exact 

 kind of forest which in one place is beloved by this bird, the same species elsewhere 

 may be found confined to an entirely different vegetation zone. As with other game- 

 birds in these mountainous regions, the annual migration is little more than one of 

 altitude. In the autumn and winter almost all the birds will be found low down 

 on the outlying flanks of the Siwaliks, perhaps a thousand feet or less above sea- 

 level, or at the bottom of the lower valleys in the more central ranges of Garhwal. 

 Here they frequent old grain-fields near water, or camping-places near more or less 



