WHITE-CRESTED KALEEGE 15 



sixteen birds, all busily feeding. The turf was dying from the attacks of innumer- 

 able grubs, and it was apparently these which attracted the birds. Of the sixteen 

 seen at once, three were full-grown males, all the rest apparently birds of the year, 

 with many scattered brown juvenile feathers remaining in their plumage. These 

 had not as yet paired off, the breeding season not having begun at this high altitude. 

 A few hundred yards away a single adult pair of pheasants were feeding by 

 themselves for three out of the four days. 



When feeding as these were doing, or when, passing slowly through forest, the 

 pheasants are suddenly disturbed by catching sight of a man, they usually run 

 swiftly off, and seldom fly unless come upon suddenly or rushed by dogs, and even 

 in the latter case in dense undergrowth they often choose to lie close and risk 

 discovery until the danger becomes acute. White-crests are never as shy as 

 Tragopans or Impeyans, and where they are not constantly annoyed or shot at by 

 natives or sportsmen, they are as tame as the most amateur hunter Sahib could 

 desire. When walking up a ravine or up the slope of a hill, if pheasants are flushed 

 by dogs somewhat above, they will often fly into the trees just over the sportsman's 

 head, and be so occupied with watching the dogs that several may be shot one after 

 the other. "When flushed from any place where they have sheltered, whether on 

 the ground or aloft, they fly off to some distant cover, and alight on the ground in 

 preference to the trees." In the case of the sixteen birds which I have mentioned 

 as being observed feeding together, at my first shot all flew uphill some forty or 

 fifty yards. This is quite an unusual habit, and it is seldom that they will thus put 

 forth the necessary exertion of actually beating upward. When suddenly alarmed 

 they usually fly down the slope, or as often on a level along the hillside. The 

 kaleege flaps rather heavily, and with rapid beats at the beginning of the flight, 

 but soon acquires terrific speed — greater, several sportsmen have estimated, than the 

 burst of a rocketing English pheasant. Referring again to the sixteen pheasants, 

 five minutes later, when flushed by my native boy, all flew downhill and alighted 

 in trees some distance below me. 



When surprised at a distance of twenty or thirty feet in dense underbrush, they 

 never attempt to fly, but invariably run quickly away, with neck outstretched and 

 tail lowered. Wholly undisturbed, and walking along slowly, not feeding, the White- 

 crested Kaleege cock has a splendid carriage, head, crest and tail raised, lifting the 

 feet high and daintily, and occasionally uttering a murmuring sound. 



The variety in the many written descriptions of the notes of this pheasant is 

 probably as much due to the fact that they really have an extremely varied voca- 

 bulary, as well as to the lack of attention which the average sportsman gives to vocal 

 or other manifestations of a game-bird when it gets up before his gun. 



When flushed by a man and actuated by only a comparatively moderate degree 

 of terror, I have always known the birds to utter a rather low whistled clucking, 

 very unlike the noisy koklass, which scream or squawk on any provocation. When 

 flushed by a dog and thoroughly alarmed they begin to cluck the instant they are 

 a-wing, and gradually gain in rapidity and loudness of utterance, the notes being 

 sibilant — se ! se ! se ! se-se-se'Se-se-se — Sip ! Sip ! Sip ! Sip ! Sip ! One writer says, 

 " Their call is a loud whistling chuckle or chirrup ; it may occasionally be heard from 



