I30 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



tree-shrew stalking its prey. How like and yet unlike a squirrel, moving at times 

 with the same jerky starts and flicks of tail, yet with a caution which told of the 

 hunter as well as the hunted. Now he spied what appeared to be a great beetle, 

 and slowly and imperceptibly crept forward. Finally, he leaped upon and secured 

 the insect, slipped, hung by one little paw, pulled himself up, spied me and burst 

 into a series of squirrel-like barks, which in depth of profanity, if not exact tone, did 

 credit to a Canadian red squirrel. 



Sunbirds flitted everywhere, seeking for their insect prey in all likely and 

 unlikely places* A shama thrush flew to a branch and scanned me closely, with now 

 and then a graceful lift to the tail. What wonderful organs of expression are tails 

 to birds of the thrush family ! They take the place of eyebrows, hands, and mouth 

 in this capacity. 



The tupaia had vanished after its vituperative outburst, but I was now delighted 

 to see on a slanting trunk a tiny tupaia, moving with infantile slowness, out on 

 perhaps its first excursion. It needed little teaching, for it munched greedily at 

 every ant which crossed its path. With a rush came a parent tupaia, seized its off- 

 spring by the neck or an ear, and rushed back with it, and up to a great mass of 

 felt-like bark and leaves, into which it carried the youngster. 



The shama sang softly beyond the glade, and I answered with the opening notes 

 Whew ! whe-whe-whe-whe-o ! wheo-wheo ! and with a flash of brown and white the 

 bird came in swift flight to a branch on my right. The white feathers of its lower 

 back were raised and its flirting tail spelled keenest excitement. Soon with high, 

 far-ofl" ventriloquial notes, sounding twenty yards away, it ran down its liquid scale 

 and bubbled into the melody of which our cage-birds give but a parody. Before it 

 flew off, a half-grown youngster added his saucy note to that of his parent. His 

 wings were spotted ; on his breast was a bar of black, and his throat was of 

 uncertain mottled hue. But he flirted his half-grown tail and scolded right shamily ! 



What absurd similes come to one in such an isolated place ! Many of the tall 

 lily-like leaves about me had been injured by insects while they were yet in the bud, 

 and now that they were unfolded, the rows of larger or smaller holes were carried 

 completely across the leaf — exactly like the perforated music rolls of a pianola piano ! 



The ground on the little slope above which I was perched was partially dry, 

 and through the leaves flat, spreading fronds of moss-like selaginella extended. As 

 with so many of the low-growing plants, these were variegated, the tips of each 

 frondlet being pale green in fine contrast to the deep shade of all the rest. 



Two small, brightly-coloured pittas passed through the glade, now close together, 

 throwing the leaves over their backs and eagerly seizing some morsel, now leaping 

 like jerboas over logs and branches. 



A tricolour squirrel sprang from bush to bush behind me, and then down across 

 the rivulet by an aerial bridge. In passing he jostled the stem of a giant calamus, 

 and now from the depths came a weird rhythmic sssh ! sssh ! — indescribably unreal, 

 a sound of some fairyland. Eyes and ears refused to locate it except far away, yet 

 I knew that at each surge of sound a thousand thousand tiny ants were shaking 

 with all their might, vibrating the hollow stems in which they dwelt. It was a 

 most soothing sound, and I sat for some minutes listening abstractedly. Then I 



