120 A MONOGRAPH OF THE PHEASANTS 



in digging among the moss and fallen leaves. It is in this work that their excessively 

 heavy, overlapping upper mandible serves them well, and from the constant use of this 

 organ it seems very reasonable that the connection between fossorial effort and its 

 ponderous size is very close ; it may, in fact, be considered a fossorial adaptation. 

 The importance of this is more evident when we consider that the Impeyan very seldom 

 makes use of its stout feet and claws for the purpose of scratching — the habit which is 

 so nearly universal among gallinaceous birds. I have seen both sexes scratch the 

 ground, but it was a half-hearted, awkward movement and effected little. 



In the high forests of Garhwal and Kashmir I have watched the Impeyans at their 

 communal feeding places and found every movement full of interest. At about ten 

 thousand feet, in the still quiet of midday, I once came across a level shelf of long 

 grass shut in by low spruces and deodars. The little glade was some dozen yards 

 across, and part of it appeared to have been recently ploughed. Closer inspection 

 showed abundant recent sign and some stray Impeyan feathers. The birds had 

 evidently been working here for some time, and I prepared a blind a little distance 

 away in a tree, from which I could see almost all the glade. The following morning 

 a heavy downpour held steadily until daylight, but the succeeding night was clear, 

 and before early dawn, lighted only by the faint greenish glow from the great mass 

 of Halley's comet, I made my way from camp along the summit of the ridge to 

 my station. Here I shivered and shook with cold for an hour or more until the 

 first few sprinklings of morning songs had grown into a well-filled chorus, with an 

 accompaniment of the two-phrased, reiterated song of a tiny green warbler. A 

 koklass called far down the valley, and ten minutes later my first Impeyan appeared, 

 stepping quietly out from the low trees and going at once to the edge of the glade, 

 where he appeared to be picking at the long blades of grass. I had mounted my 

 seven-and-a-half-power stereo-glasses with an elastic band on a small branch, and 

 like a Gatling gun I could, with the slightest touch, swing it so as to cover the entire 

 glade. A gentle push and the Impeyan came into the field, his metallic hues deadened 

 by moisture and the early dawn, but the clear brown eyes flashing here and there as he 

 plucked the heads of tiny flowers from among the grass and swallowed them. 



For fifteen minutes nothing more happened, and then, for the space of an hour, 

 Impeyans began to appear singly or in pairs, and once three together. Three other 

 times I had been grievously disappointed while in hiding, and now it seemed as if 

 I was to succeed in my concealment. Fourteen birds, every one a cock in full adult 

 plumage, were now in sight. Most of the birds went at once to the diggings, and, 

 stepping down into the hollows, began industriously to pick the earth away with 

 strong, sweeping flicks of their great shovel mandibles. Not once during this 

 observation did I see a bird use its feet in scratching. Some of the birds were 

 in holes a foot deep, and, when working, only their brilliant backs were in view. 

 They seldom worked more than three or four seconds without raising the head and 

 giving a swift glance around and especially upward into the sky, and I imagine 

 that the source of most of their troubles lies in soaring eagles. There was no fighting, 

 but now and then an undignified scramble for some tuber or other edible morsel. One 

 or two birds spent much of the time walking slowly about on the outskirts of the glade, 

 but there was no systematic watch or sentinel duty, such as is well known among some 



