152 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



British Museum. It is a regular broad oval in shape and of a pale pinkish cream 

 colour, being thus hardly distinguishable from the egg of the Bornean crested fireback. 

 It measures 51 x 40 mm. 



It is but a truism to state that these pheasants are skulkers and runners rather 

 than fliers. What ground bird whose home is amongst jungle undergrowth could be 

 aught else ? When approaching these birds with the greatest caution I have very often 

 been able to catch a momentary glimpse of them, the white tail of the male advertising 

 him at once. When several of both sexes were together it was the males which first 

 fled, the brown immature males and females delaying to have a second look at me, 

 and then usually disappearing in a different direction. If when all had vanished I 

 squatted and remained motionless, in ten or fifteen minutes I would hear what I judge 

 is the covey call, a penetrating, rather metallic, kook ! kook I uttered by both sexes. 

 This would invariably become subdued by distance, the birds evidently converging at 

 some far-off spot. But if the first place of meeting with the birds was a favourite 

 feeding-ground, as evidenced by the abundant signs of scratching, one might be 

 reasonably certain of seeing the birds at the same place on another day. Only in the 

 morning or toward evening, however. Search as I might, I could never discover a 

 single individual at other times of the day. 



The natives, both Kayans and Dyaks, told me that the birds had regular roosting- 

 places, and that they set their snares about these trees. One young man— a "grey 

 Dyak " as I called him, as he was one of those whose skin from head to foot was like 

 grey powder, a common uncontagious disease among these people — undertook to lead 

 me to one of these roosting-places. After a toilsome tramp of several miles through 

 the low jungle we came to a series of steep hills, and near the summit of one of these 

 elevations my guide suddenly stooped and picked up a tuft of feathers and part of 

 the foot and leg of a White-tailed Pheasant. The bird had been caught in a snare 

 which now dangled overhead from the tip of a sapling, and had been devoured by a 

 zebra civet, so the Dyak said, indicating the species of the marauder by pointing to 

 the bit of skin dangling at the back of his loin-cloth. A few paces farther he pointed 

 to the ground, where there was abundant sign, showing that some good-sized bird or 

 birds had been accustomed to spend the night in the branches overhead. The tree was 

 slender and very smooth barked, and it stood quite isolated, its branches free from 

 contact with those of the surrounding growths — a well-chosen roost for protection 

 against night attacks. I asked the Dyak later how he discovered and recognized such 

 roosts, and his answer was that the finding was by accident, but that such sign on 

 a steep hillside could be made only by Blaiou or Rtioi — the White-tailed or the argus, 

 but that the latter never roosted in small trees, only in large ones. 



The spurs of the male White-tailed Pheasants are moderately developed, so that 

 a certain amount of pugnacity is implied. Hewett states that they ''are very 

 pugnacious, and that their heads are consequently often raw and scarred, while they 

 would attack any other birds put in their cages." I saw no evidence of the scarring 

 on the face and wattles of the birds which came under my observation, and those 

 which I had in captivity were gentle, although it is true that they had no opportunity 

 to attack birds other than their own species. I suppose that as it was not the breeding 

 season they were quieter than they might have been six months before. 



