WESTERN TRAGOPAN 



Tragopan melanocephalus (Gray) 



NAMES. — Specific : melanocephalus, from the Greek ix&lac, black, and xe<palij head, having a black head. 

 English : Western or Black-headed Tragopan, Simla Horned Pheasant, Hasting's Pheasant, Argus, Jewar. 

 French : Tragopan a tete noire. German : Jewar. Vernacular : Jewar (Garhwal) ; Jaghi (Bussahir) ; Sing- 

 Moonal (Hindustani, W. Himalayas) ; Jeejurana [male], Bodal [female] (Kullu, Mandi, Sukeyt) ; Fulgoor (Pahari 

 Hindi, Chamba). 



Brief Description. — Male : Head and lower crest black ; nape and side neck deep red ; upper breast 

 bright orange ; upper parts black, mottled with pale buff; lower parts chiefly black ; above and below (except on 

 head, nape, breast, primaries and tail feathers) conspicuously spotted with white. 



Female : Above dark ashy grey, vermiculated and spotted with black, with narrow white shaft-stripes on 

 crown and back. Mantle rufous buff. Below cold, grizzled, pale, ashy grey, each feather with a conspicuous 

 white shaft-stripe, bordered with black. 



Type. — From Almorah, described by Gray in Griffith's edition of Cuvier, in the year 1829. The type is 

 now in the British Museum. 



RANGE. — North-western Himalayas, from Garhwal to Kashmir and Laddakh. 



THE WESTERN TRAGOPAN IN ITS HAUNTS 



Lying at full length on a mossy shelf projecting from a long mountain slope, I 

 could see through a wind-break in the forest of oaks and birches, the glistening, 

 uneven edge of snow which lay between Garhwal and Tibet. Behind me the steeply 

 rising slope shut off all view ; only beneath and to the right was there a free field of 

 vision. I had lain under my green cloth blind for two hours and had seen much of 

 interesting wild life. As the afternoon drew on, the dark line of shadow crept slowly 

 from the valley far below, up, up the mountain side to my right. The slope was steep 

 and rocky, and the vegetation which clung to its face dwarfed and scanty. Idly 

 scanning the cliffs with my glasses, I saw a distant spot detach itself from the shadows 

 of the rugged cliff and move slowly along. A quick turn of the focusing screw 

 brought a splendid serow into the field. Steadied on a bit of rock, the glasses showed 

 even the elongated pupils in his glassy, yellow eyes. He walked where a man would 

 have perished at a step ; nay, more, he nibbled now and then from some succulent tuft 

 of herbage, and once, balanced on what seemed a hand's breadth of crag, he stretched 

 his neck and scratched his ear with a hind hoof! Then he performed a miracle. 

 Without hint or crouch, he dropped stiff-legged for what seemed at least twenty feet 

 sheer down the face of the cliff, landing lightly on the narrowest of ledges, where he fed 

 for a few minutes. It was the sort of thing a bird might have done, but I never 

 realized that any four-footed creature could so juggle with gravitation and live. Then 

 he dropped again, this time not more than twice his height, perhaps eight feet, and 

 passed around an angle of rock out of sight. 



A pair of swifts which apparently had a nest in a lightning-scarred hollow trunk 



K 65 



