8 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



I stood up, stiffened with cold and my long waiting. In the west, I saw the last 

 pink tinge die out upon the clouds which now hid the snows. As I turned toward 

 camp a single snowflake melted on my face, and I realized anew how grimly winter 

 fights for supremacy far up on the world's roof. I realized, too, that I was tired ; but 

 it was a weariness fully rewarded. I had seen the Partridges of the Snows. 



GENERAL DISTRIBUTION 



The Himalayan Blood Partridge spends its life farther from the centre of the earth 

 than any true pheasant. We may apply to its haunts the exceedingly hackneyed phrase 

 " the Roof of the World " or, with Kim's Lama, we may speak more familiarly of them 

 as "the hills." The centre of its limited range is one of the loftiest of all these 

 " hills " — Kinchinjunga. The distribution of this Blood Partridge is thus confined to 

 the higher ranges of the south-eastern Himalayas. Its ability to withstand the rigors 

 of the climate at high altitudes is apparently limited only by the necessity of food 

 supply. Its life zone lies between nine and sixteen thousand feet, reaching either 

 extreme but rarely. 



In such situations it is found throughout native Sikhim, but is absent from the 

 Darjeeling district. It has long been exterminated from the southern part of the 

 Singaleela range. It has been observed along the southern border of Tibet, north of 

 Kinchinjunga, and is not uncommon in the Chumbi Valley, east of Sikhim. The late 

 Maharajah of Nepal wrote me that the Blood Partridge was unknown to Nepalese 

 hunters west of Katmundu, but was distributed to the north and east, in the general 

 direction of Everest and Kinchinjunga. Birds have been shot in the high mountains 

 of extreme western Bhutan, but until political boundaries are shifted, or foreigners are 

 allowed to enter these forbidden lands, the exact east and west range of this species 

 cannot be determined. 



GENERAL ACCOUNT 



Individual coveys or birds do not wander far, but remain rather closely to some 

 one mountain spur. There is a marked seasonal altitudinal migration, induced by the 

 annual advance and retreat of snow and general arctic conditions. But the birds 

 descend only as far as they find it necessary, and frequently remain near snow-line the 

 year around. 



In the autumn, about October, the Blood Partridges which have bred in the same 

 neighbourhood unite in a rather compact flock of several families, including both old 

 and young, numbering from fifteen to as many as forty birds. Occasionally a single 

 family of six or eight will compose the winter covey. These remain together through- 

 out the winter, roosting and feeding in close companionship. The sexes are either equal 

 in numbers, or with a slight preponderance of cocks. 



For birds of so gregarious a nature, Blood Partridges are remarkably silent, and seem 

 to convey warning or suspicion of danger to one another more by posture than voice. 

 For instance, when a covey is busily foraging and one of the birds draws itself up to 

 full height and gazes intently at some object, the entire flock at once ceases feeding and 



