WHITE-CRESTED KALEEGE 17 



guinea Moore) ; i black beetle ; 2 small, round snail-shells, and a small 

 amount of vegetable matter. The gizzard contained remains of about a 

 dozen moths ; i large turreted snail-shell, and considerable comminuted 

 vegetable matter, chiefly leaves. 

 4- — ?• Shot 6 p.m. Crop contained 14 small moths ; remains of moths and comminuted 

 vegetable matter in gizzard. 



As I have observed in writing of the koklass pheasant, the higher forests of Garhwal 

 were, during the month of May, alive with small moths, and during the early morning 

 and evening the White-crested Kaleege spent much of their time in scratching among 

 the leaves of the forest floor for these fuzzy but apparently highly appetizing insects. 

 Even at midday I have seen a female pheasant thus engaged, but without much success, 

 while just before dusk I have observed a pair of kaleege rushing here and there after 

 each turn of a leaf, in pursuit of the moths as they rose in short, irregular flights. Twice 

 under such conditions, several white-throated laughing thrushes were close at hand, 

 profiting by the efforts of the pheasants, snatching those insects which flew upward and 

 beyond the reach of the kaleege. As in so many cases elsewhere, these thrushes were 

 very frequently the companions of the pheasants when they were on the move, feeding 

 slowly through open forest, and more than once they spoiled many an hour's careful 

 stalking, by spying me out when as yet the pheasants suspected nothing. It tested all 

 one's power of self-control at such a time to keep from emptying one's gun-barrels into 

 the flock of jeering birds, as they flew close about one's hiding-place, uttering without 

 ceasing their creaky and intensely irritating see-e-e-e-e-e-p I each utterance rising to a 

 most disagreeable, shrill, rasping climax. 



Whenever I was able to study a single bird or a pair for any length of time, I was 

 impressed with the extremely regular habits or diurnal round of life which they exhibited. 

 I became acquainted with two male birds which lived within a few hundred yards 

 of one another and yet never associated closely. But both fed all day up and down the 

 opposite slopes of a narrow, forested, dry ravine, and in late afternoon, almost 

 synchronously, worked slowly upward and, still a hundred yards apart, passed over the 

 sharp ridge, down to drink at the stream which flowed at the bottom of this small 

 adjoining valley. They then turned some distance back upon their trail up the slope 

 again to roost an equal distance apart in some dense-foliaged conifers. By pitching my 

 observation tent just between the points at which the two birds traversed the saddle of 

 the ridge, I was able to watch and time each bird. They crossed on the way to drink 

 and to roost regularly at 4 p.m., varying not ten minutes during seven days, and in the 

 mornings of at least six days they re-crossed to the daily feeding-ground at 8.10 a.m., 

 never varying more than seven minutes from this mean. On two very unusually warm 

 days the birds delayed their time of passing into the roosting ravine by thirty-five 

 minutes, the two cocks crossing at the very same minute. This short period of 

 observation suggests how much could be learned of interest about these and other birds 

 by a longer period of intensive study, the results of which would be of far greater value 

 than any amount of casual, half-accurate notes. 



I found these pheasants roosting in trees from twenty to thirty feet above the 

 ground, and have no doubt that many spend the nights on much higher perches. In all 



VOL. II D 



