BORNEAN CRESTED FIREBACK 131 



suddenly saw a bird where none was a moment before. It was broad daylight and 

 the sun was shining brightly through the foliage, but the splendid cock Crested 

 Fireback within twenty feet of me was with difficulty detached from his surroundings. 

 The iridescent blue and coppery-yellow were like deep shadow and a sun-lit patch 

 of leaves. Quiet as the tree-trunk near him, for a moment he scanned every inch 

 of the glade. By some miracle I escaped his eye, and then he walked slowly down 

 to the rivulet, drank, wiped his bill and picked at the clay bank on the farther side. 

 As he walked on, three young males and two females followed. Their short 

 spurs proclaimed the youth of the cock birds, and while doubtless one of the brown 

 hens was his mate, which it was I could not tell. 



After all had drank, two of them daintily catching the moisture dripping from 

 the moss-ferns, all scattered along the rivulet gravel and began scratching in the 

 shallow water. Now and then they seized something — whether tiny crayfish or insect 

 larvae I could not tell. 



Once the broad-bill fluttered against a dead hanging vine and loosened several 

 large dried leaves which fell noisily. The cock uttered a mumbled Um-um I um-zim ! 

 and then a single sharp, keen whistle, which cut through the quiet air of the glade 

 like a knife. One by one the pheasants passed from view down the little ravine. I 

 had been vouchsafed a glimpse of a family of wild Firebacks and had not alarmed 

 them. The fates had been kind. 



When the last of the big, beautiful troop vanished, the glade seemed deserted 

 indeed. In vain the sunbird sang his lay at my very elbow ; even a mellow- 

 plumaged little trogon on a bough near by could hold my attention but a moment. 

 The King, with his Queen and Princes had gone — what were commoners now ! I 

 slipped to the ground and stretched my cramped limbs, and began to creep into the 

 maze of thorny vines from which the birds had first emerged. Three steps on hands 

 and knees and the vague, indefinite dream-sound arose, this time above and around 

 me. Now that it was closer I seemed to detect a sinister note in its softness. 

 Instead of a single tone, it seemed a myriad blended into one, with hundreds 

 fraying out at the beginning and end. A sharp pain on my wrist caused me to 

 start involuntarily, and looking up I saw an army of vicious jaws and stings waiting 

 for my nearer approach. No human being could force his way to the centre of that 

 clump of harmless-looking underbrush. Truly the secrets of this family of pheasants, 

 at least in this little ravine, were safe for the present I 



GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



The Bornean Crested Fireback seems to be very generally distributed throughout 

 that great island, and wherever I have travelled it has always been by far the least 

 rare of all the Bornean pheasants. We know of specimens from many parts of 

 Sarawak, from Elopura, North Borneo ; Pleyharie, South Borneo ; and Mount 

 Kenepai, West Borneo, besides many other localities. Its occurrence on the island 

 of Banka, separated from Sumatra only by a narrow channel, must be looked upon 

 undoubtedly as due to introduction by man. Otherwise it is difficult to explain its 

 absence from the intervening island of Billiton, on which I found no trace of the 



