SINO-MONGOLIAN FRONTIER 
fat woodcock burst out of some thick coppice 
of young pines and went rocketing away, some- 
times falling to one or other of the guns. 
Presently, as we worked down a long ridge, the 
unearthly and awe-inspirmg cry of the eared 
pheasant (Crossoptilon manchuricum) rang out 
from a clump of pines on the opposite slope, to be 
taken up and thrown back from several other 
‘points in the underbrush. To my companions 
the peculiar noise was new, but to me it was a 
familiar sound, though I was surprised to hear it 
in this locality. 
How well I remember my first experience of 
that fearsome call, or rather series of calls. I was 
at the time away in the high mountains of Western 
Shansi, and was stalking a deer through a dense 
forest, when the noise rang out within a few yards 
of me, echoing through the dark arches of the 
pines and sending cold shivers down my back. I 
did not then discover the perpetrator of the dis- 
cordant cries. Later when I was out in Kansu, 
and was traversing some dark and wooded gorges 
high up in the Lu-p’an mountains, I was again 
startled by the same indescribable sound, which 
seemed to issue from the throat of some fearsome 
beast of prey lurking in the gloomy depths of those 
mountain gorges. It was not till the winter of 
1909, while on the expedition dealt with in the 
foregoing chapter, that I discovered it was the 
eared-pheasant’s challenge which had so startled 
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