WHITE-CRESTED KALEEGE 19 



The method of escape of these birds in the face of attack by sportsmen is varied, and 

 shows considerable intelligence. When a dog arouses an experienced cock bird, instead 

 of losing its head and flying off at once, perhaps to within easy range of the gun, it will 

 sometimes fly up into a tree, uttering its loud clucking all the while. From this point 

 of vantage it will look about in all directions to see if danger other than the dog 

 menaces. Often a single glance will reveal the sportsman, and the bird is off like a flash 

 to safety in the opposite direction. 



Again, where the bird is shot at a great deal, it often flies into a tree at the very first 

 approach of the dog, and there remains, crouched motionless in some fork of a branch 

 or in a dense bit of foliage, or pressed close to the trunk itself, so that it is impossible to 

 find it. One may walk around and around, throw stones, halloo at the top of one's voice, 

 and when at last the quick eyes of a native gun-bearer detect it, the pheasant seems 

 simultaneously to sense its discovery, and, like an arrow, it drops from its perch on the 

 opposite side of the tree and is away off down the valley, silently and on scaling wings, 

 before a warning shout can be uttered or a gun raised. 



In the reserved forests the kaleege are included in the law which is meant to protect 

 all pheasants during the breeding season, and are supposed to be shot by Europeans only 

 from September 15 to the end of December. As I have said, the kaleege pheasants often 

 enter the grain-fields and feed on the corn, and in return they are snared in large 

 numbers, by baiting with small heaps of grain placed in the fields in which they have 

 previously been observed. 



The White-crested Kaleege breeds throughout its range, from the Terai at a thousand 

 feet elevation, throughout the outer Siwaliks, and northward almost to the snows. The 

 highest recorded nest was at a height of nine thousand five hundred feet. At the foot of 

 the hills and lower valleys the hen pheasant begins to deposit her eggs in April. Higher 

 up the breeding season does not commence until May, and this is delayed at still higher 

 altitudes until the middle of June. April 4 and June 20 are the extreme dates at which 

 fresh eggs appear to have been found. 



The kaleege are monogamous, and each pair keeps by itself. The cocks are very 

 pugnacious, and fight fiercely, especially in the early morning. One writer tells of 

 shooting a male bird, which lay on the ground fluttering in its death struggles, when a 

 second cock kaleege dashed out of the jungle near by and attacked the dying bird with 

 the greatest fury, although the sportsman was standing close at hand. 



The drumming with the wings, which I have already mentioned, is heard chiefly in 

 the early part of the breeding season, and from observation there is no doubt that it is 

 a warning or challenge to other males within hearing. It has been well compared to the 

 rapid shaking in the air of a piece of stiff cloth. We have certain proof that it is merely 

 a defiance, and not a call to attract the females, by observing the result of the native 

 trapping in Burma with a decoy male of one of the allied pheasants of this genus. In 

 this case, male after male replies to and rushes at the drumming bird, but no female is 

 ever thus enticed within reach of the snares. 



In regard to this drumming Baldwin says, ''We had been sitting motionless for, 

 I suppose, half-an-hour, when I was startled, all of a sudden, by the loud drumming 

 noise I have already described, close at hand. The sound came from behind, and on 

 looking over my shoulder, my companion, with a smile, pointed out the drummer. An 



