214 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



I clap my hands and receive na response. Again, and a sleepy ''Yes, Sahib!" 

 comes from the rear of the house. When I am dressed, the very lightest of a chota 

 hazri is brought, and then I am ready. The Tamil tracker falls in ahead, and with an 

 occasional flash from my electric light, we make our way slowly along a narrow, winding 

 animal trail. There is little danger of getting off the trail, for the least touch of the 

 surrounding vegetation reveals a myriad punishing thorns. 



After we have gone a mile or more I send him off to a clump of trees near the water- 

 pools to see if he can bag a peafowl, and I continue my way in the dim light of early 

 dawn. With a snarl a civet cat leaps to one side from my path, "civeting" in his 

 excitement until the whole air is poisoned with the pungent musk. 



Junglefowl were now calling close at hand, and as the light increased I began to 

 efface myself as much as possible. I crawled to the top of a low, rolling bit of turf, 

 and surprised a second large cat rooting for grubs. The animal slunk away silently. 

 In front lay an acre or two of jungle-locked glade, bounded. with tall euphorbias and 

 acacias, with a few grassy knolls and a scattering of cock-spur thorn-bushes. As the 

 sun rose I watched quietly and listened to the booming of the distant breakers. 

 A tremulous, vibrating thread of sound arose close at hand, and I soon traced this to 

 a high-backed tortoise, gorgeously marked with a radiating pattern of gold. He 

 clambered awkwardly into view, waddled onward a few steps, reared up his leathery 

 head, and with swelling throat sent forth the penetrating trill. At the very moment, as 

 if Esop's fables were to be re-enacted here in this Ceylonese wilderness, a great hare 

 leaped from a thorn bush, cleared a segment of the glade in three bounds, and vanished 

 on the opposite side. Patiently I waited for more wild creatures, watching a pair of 

 bee-eaters flycatching from a high acacia. A snort came from behind, and twisting my 

 head, I was just in time to see a pair of axis deer vanish among the bushes. Then I 

 was thrilled by a short, broken crow. Now that I heard it so close at hand, no human 

 words fitted it ; there was no George Joyce nor any other human appellation in it, nor 

 was it at all like the crow of a domestic chanticleer, but a true wilderness voice, the 

 challenge of the Ceylon Junglefowl. 



Soon a form emerged from the shadows, and regardless of leeches and ticks, I 

 flattened myself on the turf and strained through my glasses. Until the bird reached 

 the first knoll it looked like a dark kind of pheasant, its head and tail carried low, and 

 watchful of everything on land and in the air. 



I could distinguish every detail of feather, every glance of the eye. There was 

 naught of the domestic fowl in that carriage. Then he rose to full height and gave his 

 call. The tail was raised, the head lifted high, the wings a trifle free of the body ; and 

 then the low catch-syllable and the ringing double-note. The cock advanced to a newly 

 erected turret city of termites, and after a careful survey of every point, began vigorously 

 scratching. For a full two minutes he made no attempt to feed, but with strong efforts 

 jerked the earth backward with his strong claws, working devastation in the insect 

 metropolis. Then he began picking, picking rapidly, glancing up every few seconds. 

 He uttered a low chack, chack, in the tone with which, in fowl language, a hen is 

 summoned. But before any Junglehen could answer, I unintentionally put an end to 

 further observation. At full tension for many minutes, as I had been, I must have 

 jumped a foot as a sudden sw-e-e-e-e-ep of wings roared in my very face— sudden and 



