LINEATED KALEEGE 59 



appear to remain with the parents throughout the autumn and winter, wandering 

 off by themselves only at the approach of the next breeding season. The annual 

 moult occurs about October or November, and while the young birds may breed in 

 the second year, it is sometimes the fourth annual moult before all signs of 

 juvenility are eliminated from the plumage. 



RELATION TO MAN 



Although partial to lonely trails which pass through the jungle, and occasionally 

 feeding along the borders of cleared fields, yet Lineated Pheasants do not like the 

 haunts of mankind, and prefer the undisturbed quiet of isolated regions. They will 

 not, however, desert a place at the first appearance of civilization, and may be shot 

 for a year or two at comparatively short distances from recently-built rest-houses. 

 They remain even longer in the vicinity of a new native hamlet, where, in the end, 

 the trapping of the birds results in an even more thorough elimination. 



Kaleege are taken both in spring-traps and by means of decoy birds. These 

 are surrounded by scores of nooses, and the approaching cocks seldom avoid 

 entangling themselves before they reach their supposed rival. I have already spoken 

 of the decoying of wild birds by means of artificially imitating the wing-whirr. 

 Besides the bamboo-stick-and^eaf method, this is achieved by means of a bit of 

 cloth held in the two hands and repeatedly snapped taut. Sometimes two methods 

 are combined, as when the hidden native whirls his stick and thus stimulates 

 the tethered tame bird to wing-whirring, which sound, in turn, attracts the wild 

 cocks. 



English sportsmen consider the kaleege as legitimate game, and many are shot 

 both in season and out. The latter reprehensible deed carries its own punishment, 

 for very often the birds are exceedingly lean and tough. In the autumn and winter, 

 after a diet of acorns, they leave little to be desired as an addition to the camp 

 mess. 



Accounts differ widely as to the behaviour of the kaleege when hunted, some 

 sportsmen saying it always escapes by running, others that it flies at once. In 

 underbrush, when approached by a man, it certainly always escapes on foot, but the 

 approach of a dog in almost any kind of cover is sufficient to send it up at once 

 into a tree. 



While the general range of the Lineated Kaleege is being continually restricted 

 by wholesale shooting and trapping, yet it is protected in all Government reserved 

 forests between March i and October i, and even outside there are many officers and 

 other sportsmen who are as conscientious as if they were on preserves at home. 



Full-blooded Lineated Kaleege are rarely to be procured alive outside of Burma, 

 the birds generally showing atypical characters, being captured probably on the 

 boundary of the range of the species, where hybridism has taken place. The first 

 were exhibited in London in 1864. Of nineteen individuals of which records were 

 kept, the average duration of life was a year and ten months, while the extreme 

 was six years and four months. Lineated Kaleege breed readily, and, of course, 

 cross with any species of the genus. 



