104 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



A few yards ahead I heard now and then a muffled scratching of leaves. Fortune 

 favoured me, and after many minutes of most painstaking stalking, I reached a good 

 point of observation. For a long time I could make out nothing but a confused dark 

 mass tumbling about — first falling over one side, then the other. My low-power glasses 

 at last showed me it was two Fireback hens waging a battle as fiercely as any 

 game-cocks. 



Breathlessness was the only cause of stopping, and even when both seemed com- 

 pletely exhausted, they clung together, and from time to time gave wholly ineffectual 

 pecks at one another. Their wings dragged, their feathers were ruffled, and they were 

 altogether most disreputable-looking females. Finally, thinking they were so spent that 

 I could catch them with my hands, I walked toward them. But though their combative 

 strength was spent, they had reserve enough to run quickly off when they saw me 

 coming. 



The comparative similarity in colour of the sexes of this species, and the presence 

 of spurs in both, would indicate that courtship was a more or less reciprocal affair, and 

 the fight of the hen birds which I witnessed would also support this conclusion. On 

 the other hand, there are good reasons for supposing that this species is more or less 

 polygamous, and if such is the case, any such theory would fail to explain the facts. 



Further observation showed that these birds were more numerous along the smaller 

 creeks which traversed the low country, and that they haunted the water-holes of the 

 buffaloes in early morning. They have apparently no regular place of fighting, but pitch 

 into one another whenever and wherever the spirit moves them. 



Birds which become badly injured in these encounters or are otherwise disabled or 

 weakly have short shrift. Leeches and ticks do their work even before the keen noses of 

 carnivores find them out. One recently dead bird with a spur-thrust through its breast 

 I found with a circle of gorged leeches lying about, and the ants were assembling in 

 hundreds, eager to play their part in the drama of dissolution. 



Even continued trapping will not drive these birds away, and a pot-hunter or 

 trapper could destroy every member of a flock. 



The note of suspicion or half-alarm of the Malayan Fireback is a sharp, explosive 

 kakl followed by the throaty, frog-like gulp, characteristic of all the Gennaeus, uttered 

 once or twice. Then the kakl again, and the subdued bubbling or gurgling sounds. 

 The note of wild despair when attacked by some animal, or being removed from a trap 

 by a native, is, in the old bird, a hoarse, long-drawn cry ; in the young a shrill whistling. 

 The sound of warning or challenge when two cocks threaten one another is a deep, 

 hoarse drawl, almost a snarl, which one would attribute rather to a carnivore than to 

 a small pheasant. 



The fowl-like appearance which the roof-like, compressed tail gives to this Fireback 

 is well indicated by the Malayan name. The natives never call it kuang (pheasant), 

 but always burong (bird) or ay am (fowl). 



Although this pheasant is not uncommon in some places, and, as we have seen, even 

 frequents the vicinity of isolated huts or native hamlets, yet its nest has never been 

 found, nor, as far as I know, have we any record of its eggs or young. I was unable to 

 learn anything authentic concerning its nidification, although the natives were ever 

 ready to furnish me with any information (doubtless made to order) which they thought 



