144 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



It vocalized all the wildness, it voiced all the haunting tragedies of this great island, and 

 it threw over me a spell of evil in the days to come which ever after recurred again and 

 again whenever I heard this cry. Six times the Argus called in all, listening for three 

 or four minutes after each time, walking slowly about, sometimes taking only a few steps, 

 or again making the entire round of the arena before calling. 



All its motions were slow and leisurely, except once. In the course of its walk it 

 came to a rather large leaf which had eddied down from a tree overhead. This it picked 

 up, dropped, picked up again and carried, with an awkward waddling trot, to the edge of 

 the clearing, pushed half into the ferns there and backed into the arena again without 

 the leaf. I had at last seen the bird in the act of cleaning house. The effect was odd. 

 The moment it took the leaf into its beak its whole manner changed, and the slow, 

 waiting, patient, calling emotion gave place to a worried, hurried, very undignified, 

 practical sense of orderliness, which passed as soon as the leaf had been consigned to 

 the scrap basket of the jungle. As the caller, it typified a bird of the wilderness ; when 

 carrying the leaf, it might have been a fat domestic hen running off with a bit of food. 



I doubt if the Argus was half as desirous of a mate as I was anxious to have one 

 appear, and for an hour two very hopeful beings kept watch together at that arena, one 

 calling and walking about, the other tensely watching and listening underground, 

 jumping at every sound of wind or squirrel in the jungle, magnifying every movement 

 of a fern frond as the advance of an answering hen. But we were both doomed to 

 disappointment, and my luck at that clearing ceased for ever. My next tryst was most 

 unromantically ended by an invasion of fire-ants. 



This was earlier in the afternoon of another day, and for an hour I watch the jungle 

 life about the clearing. The old buttressed tree overhead is ancient, it was probably old 

 long before the first white man set foot on this great island. Another, almost as 

 venerable, looms up a few yards off to the left. Elsewhere grow many lesser trees close 

 together, fighting in the upward race for light and air. All are mottled and marbled 

 with lichens, green, grey and brown, while the spots of sunlight sift through in a thousand 

 bits of warm yellow glow. For all I know, the dancing-place in front of me might be 

 as old as the tree which overshadowed it. An old, old Dyak chief led me to this arena 

 and told me that his father had trapped many Argus in it, and no one knew when there 

 was not an arena here. Few hills have a clearing of such unusual size as this, and the 

 total absence of all the dense growth which crowded up to the very edge would hint of 

 many years of occupancy. 



The air of the glade was heavy with an exotic perfume, for I accidentally crushed 

 some leaves before entering my hiding-place, and they gave forth a strong aroma as of 

 camphor. The scented air throbbed with the low drone of cicadas. Huge black and 

 amber ants wandered slowly, aimlessly, about the edge of the clearing, so large that 

 they were conspicuous several yards away. At the very margin, close to my hiding- 

 place, a curious trilobite-shaped creature crawled awkwardly. Butterflies and flying 

 lizards seemed to have pre-empted the arena as a place of pleasure, especially the great 

 black and white lacery butterflies, nameless except to the entomologist, who calls them 

 Hestia. These great jungle insects flitted slowly, deliberately about, soaring now and 

 then, gracefully as vultures, across the sun-spattered glade. The flying dragons crept 

 like little grey mice up the tree-trunks, inflated their queer comical throat pouches a 



