242 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



whence it is impossible to flush him. Only when beating the narrow, well-defined belts 

 of tree jungle that run down the ravines on the hillsides in the Nilgiris, and which we 

 there call sholas, is anything like real sport to be got out of them. Then, indeed, the gun 

 at the tail end of the shola may get three or four good shots in succession, as they rise at 

 the end of the cover and fly ofl" with a strong, well-sustained flight to the next nearest 

 patch. Even thus, working hard and beating skola after shola, a man will be lucky to 

 bag five or six brace in a day. 



''The reason is, that all the well-defined sholas which can be thoroughly beaten are 

 in the higher parts of the hills, where the birds are comparatively rare, while when you 

 get lower down, where the birds are plentiful, the jungles are so large that they cannot 

 be effectively worked. If you merely want to kill the birds, you might get perhaps ten 

 or a dozen in a short time poking along some of the roads, but they afford no sport 

 thus, only a series of pot shots. 



" I remember once watching an old cock that my dogs had driven up into a tree. 

 For some time I peered round and round (the tree was a large and densely-foliaged one) 

 without being able to discover his whereabouts, he all the while sitting silent and 

 motionless. At last my eyes fell upon him, that instant he hopped silently on to 

 another bough and from that to another, and so on with incredible rapidity, till, 

 reaching the opposite side of the tree, he flew out silently, of course never giving me a 

 chance at a shot." 



A sportsman near Mt. Abu says that the cordon system of driving "is usually 

 adopted in shooting them here. The guns are placed behind screens made previously 

 by the * shikaris,' at the ends of patches of jungle the birds are known to affect, and the 

 beaters are sent round to drive the birds up to them, forming a semi-circular line to 

 prevent the birds escaping at the sides. It is very poor sport, you seldom or never get 

 a flying shot, and when you do, the jungle is so thick that it is about ten to one you 

 miss. The birds, especially the old cocks, are remarkably wary, and the moment they 

 hear the beaters they begin to run, stopping about every fifty yards to listen. 



"They have a very quick eye, and alter their course immediately if they see or hear 

 the slightest thing in front. The only way, therefore, when you know a bird is coming, 

 is to raise your gun silently to your shoulder, turn very quietly in the direction from 

 which it is coming, and remain perfectly motionless, and as soon as ever the bird gets 

 within shot, fire. 



" I have shot them with dogs, but that is equally poor sport. As soon as the 

 Junglefowl sees the dog, he flies up into a tree and squats upon a bough until you 

 dislodge him from his supposed place of security with a charge of shot." 



Dr. G. H. Krumbiegel, superintendent of the Mysore Museum, writes me that in 

 Mysore the Grey Junglefowl is protected from March i to September i, but that 

 natives shoot them throughout the year. The method usually adopted is to sit in 

 ambush over a water-hole, or feed the birds regularly at a certain spot, and when they 

 are well together feeding, to " brown" the lot. A shikari will sometimes call up a cock 

 by imitating the hen. The sound is a very soft note, and one would scarcely think the 

 cock would hear it thirty or forty yards away, but he rushes along impetuously within 

 half a minute. The Kurbars track Junglefowl, but the people who destroy them to the 

 greatest extent are the Pardees, a wandering tribe in Mysore, whose only occupation is 



