32 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



some unknown fairyland. Perched in a glow of sunlight almost within arm's reach, the 

 feathered atom was ablaze with metallic colour — from its beak to toe one's eye registered 

 green, maroon, olive, bright yellow, green and black, while its breast was of brightest 

 lemon stained with crimson. A shuffling among the ferns drew my eyes away and 

 slowly there lumbered past, seen dimly beyond one side of the glade, a half-grown bear. 

 The black beast made no commotion, pushing quietly through the under-brush and 

 soon passing from view. When I looked back the sunbird, too, had vanished. Although 

 the bear never crossed my path again, it was far different with the hen Kaleege, as I had 

 occasion to discover a few days later. 



The rest of the afternoon passed quietly, although I once had a thrill when two deer 

 came close to me and crossed the glade, with many stops for a nibble at fern-top or moss. 

 One was rufous, one was brown, a sambur doe and nearly grown fawn. Their eyes were 

 lustrous, and together with their ears and nostrils never for an instant ceased their 

 vigilant watch for danger. I was hidden and above reach of scent, but not a rustle of 

 squirrel or bird but was noticed, not a movement of shadow or quiver of mossy bough 

 but was tested with sight and scent and hearing. Their life seemed one great fear — one 

 never-ending watch for death. And here was I, the type of the most terrible of all their 

 enemies, my gun ready, but with my mind far more murderously inclined towards any 

 of my fellow men who could at such a time have shot them, than toward the wonderful 

 creatures themselves. 



The most conspicuous and jolliest of the lesser tenants of this Kaleege jungle were 

 golden-winged laughing thrushes, sturdy birds, clad in grey-striped browns, set off with 

 patches of black, white and greenish gold. They were usually quiet vocally, but for ever 

 making a great racket among the leaves and debris of the jungle floor. They worked in 

 pairs, and from the sound of their progress might have been a whole flock or herd of 

 creatures. Now and then they would leap to a low twig and burst into a rollicking duet 

 — a sudden, startling mutual guffaw of loud, harsh notes. It seemed as out of place amid 

 the quiet of these dim aisles as the antics of a clown in a cathedral. 



The setting sun found many loop-holes in the canopy of moss, and the glade became 

 brighter than at midday, the long golden shafts reaching far in through the jungle, 

 turning the moss to golden lacery and the ferns to yellow-green filigree. New bird 

 voices came to my ears — two sad half-tones reiterated until they seemed to embody all 

 the sorrow of the tragedies of the wilderness. The first call of the coming night silenced 

 the voicing of the day's sadness ; the deep, gruff hoo ! hoo I of an owl presaging the still 

 more terrible intimacy of life and death when the sunshine had gone. 



Some time later the whirr of wings drew my attention down vista, and there a pair 

 of Black-backed Kaleege balanced on a low, swaying branch. For a brief space they 

 conversed in undertones, each murmuring in the manner so characteristic of all this 

 group of pheasants. The brown hen almost immediately scaled down to a mossy log, 

 took as before a single comprehensive look about, and dropped down in the selfsame 

 place among the ferns, going on to her eggs. 



The cock bird ascended the maple sapling, branch after branch, and then crossed to 

 an oak and continued to climb his arboreal ladder until he had almost reached the level 

 of my eye. Walking out on a good-sized branch on the opposite side of the trunk he 

 stood for some minutes, looking down, behind, upward, in every direction, murmuring 



