80 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



" For a few minutes the two birds, male and female, scratched about the hill just 

 like a pair of barndoor fowls, now and then picking up an insect disturbed from under 

 the pebbles, or seizing a grasshopper from the scraps of herbage scattered about over 

 the bare ground. But presently, ceasing to take any interest in the abundant food all 

 about him, the cock bird began to attempt to attract the attention of the hen by all sorts 

 of antics and displays. At first he merely came up to her and bowed and scraped with 

 his wings slightly raised, and his purple-blue horns fully dilated and projecting forward. 

 Then, seeing that she took no notice, he depressed his wings and walked slowly around 

 her, nodding violently as he walked and swelling out his throat and breast, the feathers 

 of which were ruffled and standing almost on end. After a short time of this ineffectual 

 display he once more stopped in front of the hen, and standing still, leaned forward 

 until his breast almost, or quite, rested on the ground; he then extended both his wings, 

 so that their upper portions faced the same way as his head, and stood thus for some 

 seconds — a blaze of deep crimson, with his weirdly shaped horns quivering with 

 excitement, and his wattles displayed to the fullest possible extent. Then suddenly 

 his feathers collapsed, his horns nearly disappeared ; he held himself erect, and once 

 more quietly commenced to scratch and feed until he and his mate shortly disappeared 

 into the adjoining forest. 



" As far as I could see, the hen bird took little or no interest in the display of the 

 male, and continued serenely feeding all the time it was going on, but this was perhaps 

 only a ladylike way of inducing him to exert himself to the uttermost. Both birds 

 constantly uttered a soft, chuckling note, and now and then the cock bird gave a 

 rather loud quawk. 



" I have had a great many of these birds in confinement and found them — once 

 they had settled down — very easy to keep. They were almost omnivorous in their diet, 

 and would eat any sort of grain; many kinds of green food, and any insects or small 

 reptiles, etc., which I could procure for them. The males were rather quarrelsome, more 

 especially during the breeding season, but they seldom did one another much harm, 

 the weaker bird promptly apologizing and retiring to a distant part of the aviary, whilst 

 the stronger was quite content to strut around, and proclaim in loud quawks what he 

 would have done had it ever come to a fight. 



"The cocks had a magnificent loud clanging — almost trumpet-like call, which they 

 uttered only at daybreak during the breeding season ; it was rather like a mild and 

 musical call of a peafowl, but shorter and not nearly so harsh. 



" Blyth's, like all other Tragopans, is essentially an arboreal bird, roosting, resting, 

 and building its nest on trees. My birds laid eggs in captivity, but would never lay 

 them in nests or sit upon those they had laid. The first eggs laid were broken because 

 I did not know of the nest-building proclivities of the birds. The hen insisted on 

 trying to lay them on a tiny shelf in the corner of the aviary, and, of course, they fell 

 off and were demolished. After two eggs had been broken in this way I took away 

 the shelf and fixed up a comfortable box filled with straw, but, refusing the box as 

 a nest, she laid two more eggs upon the ground. 



" I have never seen a nest of this bird, but the Nagas inform me that they are 

 always built by the Tragopans themselves of good-sized sticks, with a rough lining of 

 smaller twigs and sometimes grass and weed stems. Also, the Nagas assert, they are 



