142 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



diligently. The ground looked as if it had been raked and most of the dead leaves and 

 moss had been cleared away. Many of the broken fronds had been torn off and carried 

 some distance beyond the jungle edge, and scores of small tree sprouts had been stripped 

 of leaves and in some cases of bark, and stood stiff and graceless in the disturbed mould, 

 awaiting further attack. In this uprooting process the bird must spend a great deal of 

 time and strength, for I discovered, by testing, that some of these season's sprouts had 

 taken a very firm roothold. The following day I found the tell-tale body feathers which 

 seemed to indicate that the bird had been driven away, and thereafter there were no more 

 evidences of occupation. A careful survey of the surroundings at this time showed that 

 the roosting-place, for several days at least, had been on a horizontal branch of a species 

 of wild fig tree, about ten feet from the ground and only a few yards from the edge of 

 the prospective arena. 



Another late afternoon I was vouchsafed a bit of intimacy from the lives of these 

 birds. But while I narrate these episodes one after the other, it must not be thought 

 that the opportunities came as easily. To make my few successful experiences fully 

 appreciated I should write, in as vivid language as possible, accounts of my far more 

 numerous disappointments and failures. When two or three hours of cramped, painful 

 waiting resulted in nothing ; when an Argus came into view and, just as it seemed about 

 to do something unusual, a bit of loose bark slipped under my foot and the whole day 

 and the ruse of tree bundles were wasted ; when I think of the day when everything had 

 been guarded against, and my subterranean plan seemed about to prove a splendid 

 success, and a miserable tupaia or tree-shrew discovered me looking out of my conning 

 tower and shrieked his knowledge to the world, frightening every living thing within 

 earshot and making my hollow the centre of all eyes of the small jungle folk ! These 

 are the things which make this sort of hunting worth while ; when it is not a question 

 of the hopelessly unfair balance of dull senses behind powder and shot, pitted against 

 keen senses, wise only in jungle lore. Here the advantage is with the wilderness folk 

 every time, and success means the hardest kind of work, mental and physical. 



A week or two later I located a very promising dancing arena. As usual, it was on 

 the very top of a low hill, but the escape trail, of which I shall have more to say later, lay 

 toward the south, while in the opposite direction the ground held level for a few yards, 

 and close by there grew a great jungle tree with a lacery of rootlets fringing a graceful, 

 outjutting buttress. I made up my mind quickly, and in a half-hour, with the help of a 

 Dyak boy, I had my hiding-place made. We excavated the earth from behind the 

 buttress until I could kneel or sit at ease, and then formed a roof almost level with the 

 ground of an old camera cloth, the centre braced upward into a little conning tower, 

 pierced with many loopholes, and the whole covered with brush. The Dyak boy dug 

 with the greatest rapidity, for all the world like a dog. With his hands he scraped up 

 the mould and with knees and feet kicked it behind him. Nature has been kind to me 

 physically and given a figure which will permit wriggling into a small aperture like 

 a seal going down its breathing-hole in the ice. So it was a matter of a minute to 

 slide down into the cool, earthy-odoured hollow and cover my tracks with a branch 

 or two. 



This ant's-eye view gave me many interesting sights of jungle life, and I never 

 realized before how much more exciting the doings of the little creatures of the forest 



