ii8 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



The Argus Pheasants, in the amount of feather extent and surface, are excelled, if 

 indeed they are even equalled, only by the peacocks. While in general colouring they 

 are excellently adapted for concealment among the lights and shadows of the jungle, yet 

 only once have I seen any even unconscious realization of this fact, and that in the 

 Bornean species. They usually choose to run at once. Compared with the other 

 pheasants with which I am familiar, they are wary and shy, but not to the extent to 

 which they are often credited. Their crepuscular and nocturnal habits and their 

 extremely acute sense of hearing are the real causes of their apparently superlative 

 wariness. So the descriptive terms "abundant" and "common" are almost meaning- 

 less. Compared with birds which live in flocks, or with the most widespread jungle 

 species, neither term would be correct, for we are left with no comparative adjective. 



The loud call is the chief, often the only source of computation, and the frequency 

 and loudness of this utterance, together with the ventriloquial quality which is imparted 

 by hearing it through the walls of a native house or even a tent, would tend to make 

 one exaggerate the actual numbers. I have heard six distinct birds calling at once, but 

 this is very unusual, and two at the same time is not at all a common occurrence. 

 The jealousy with which each male guards its display ground and the adjacent 

 territory is a factor which tends to limit the numbers of birds in any given district, 

 and their solitary habits give a final emphasis to this limitation. Thus the discussion 

 of their comparative abundance is not a question of comparison at all, as it depends 

 upon factors so peculiarly Argusine, and wholly unlike those, for instance, which 

 concern the numerical distribution of more or less gregarious pheasants like the kaleege. 

 Although the courtship and its accessory properties are more elaborate than in the case 

 of any other species of pheasant, yet the social instinct is almost absent, and the Argus 

 are probably the most solitary of their family, correlating with this a confirmed polygamy. 

 The mother-love and guardianship of her chicks is faultless, and this association 

 exhausts the social cravings of the species. There is no assembling, either accidentally, 

 as in the vicinity of some unusual abundance of food, or .distinctly social, as in a pair or 

 more roosting close to one another. 



The slender character of this physical association is reflected by the voice of the 

 male, which is probably equalled only by that of the peacock. The solitary wanderers 

 require a voice of extreme loudness to guide them to one another. It is the one physical 

 attribute by which the presence of the bird may immediately be realized when its haunts 

 are entered. To the Malay ear the cock Argus calls kuau and kMa7ig ; to the wild 

 Sakai kwdk, to the Siamese kyek, while the native of Sumatra has translated the cry 

 into the syllables koeweau or kuaow. All these have come to be the general names of 

 the birds in their respective countries — wholly onomatopoetic in origin. In a Malay 

 poem, descriptive of the birds of Sumatra, the Argus Pheasant is thus aptly described : 

 " In the superb and many-coloured Kuaow, it is impossible to discern a single fault save 

 one — the difficulty of pronouncing its name." 



When nothing disturbs the calling of the birds they seem to hold quite regularly 

 to distinct peculiarities in the tempo or timbre of the cry. On the occasion of hearing 

 six birds at once, I could differentiate the calls of each from one another, either by greater 

 or lesser intervals of time between each utterance, or by individual quaver, inflection or 

 other modulation. I believe that the call of the adult males is always given from the 



